Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

Who does the internet say you are? Time for a (re)introduction.

This letter is long overdue.

It’s inspired by a beautiful post from Jena Schwartz on Facebook. She kindly cites my work on the Imposter Complex. And shares of herself...which is what I intend to do here.

It’s also inspired by a comment from a new client who said she spent the better part of a day researching me to see if I was who I said I was. (She landed the plane on the fact that I am. And that’s pretty fantastic.) I figured it was time again to share a little more about myself than my TEDx talktraining, and testimonials show. More than the internet says I am.

Who does the internet say you are? (Good Q, huh?)

It’s ALSO inspired by the fact that there are hundreds of new readers in this space since last month. I believe many of you found me through my newest training. Thank you for following the breadcrumbs to my digital home. And for those of you who have been faithfully reading my words since 2007, I thank you for your continued gift of your time. I appreciate you deeply.

Let’s go.

The last corporate job I held was in advertising. It was not, as we would say, soul-nourishing in any way shape or form. But it was ‘fine’. When my mother got sick, however, I started to develop a super complicated relationship with western medicine. Tricky, given my clients were all Big Pharma. There were definitely aspects of the work that I loved, to be certain. Things came to a head for me when I was in Ottawa supporting the launch of an Alzheimer’s drug. The planes crashed into the Twin Towers. In spite of the horror, we were told the “the show must go on”. THE. SHOW. MUST. GO ON. Apparently, we had yet to “dollarize the number of North Americans with Alzheimer’s.” Nah. And THAT was the beginning of the end for that career. 

I found my way into coaching through a program I created out of necessity for a dear friend of mine called Board of Your Life. You should probably know that I intend to revive it with a fervour in the coming year. My sense is that now more than ever we need this kind of connection. More on that some other time.

You're going to hear me talking a lot about my mother here as she was a Model of Joy for me. I don't think we have enough Models of Joy… so I share her with you. Nor do we have Models of Celebration. Nor Models of Righteous Anger. When you find them, share them back.

We live with three cats. One is named Snoopy Bloodle Rainbow Pasta. The other is named Ramona Gergie Crookshanks Sarney Geisler. And the third, and this is my favourite of all the names, is Mateo. You can tell who did the naming and at what ages.

Speaking of which, I have a 15-year-old daughter who breaks my heart open with lifejoy on the daily. If you want to know more about her, I've been writing birthday posts to her for the last eight years. Hereherehereherehereherehere, and here. Her 16th birthday is coming. That's gonna be a doozy.

I say shit like doozy all the time. I also say shit.

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I am grateful that I have gathered excellent people around me...an excellent team and excellent friends. (Like Victoria...those are her hair-fixing hands in that picture. She makes me laugh like my sister does.)

I am endlessly fascinated by the Imposter Complex, which is likely what brought you here, and we should start by saying I call it the Imposter Complex (not Imposter Syndrome) for a very specific reason that I share in this article. It has three main objectives and I've written extensively about those herehere, and here.

I also think it's important that we undo a lot of the gaslighting that has been happening in the self development space around the behavioural traits of the Imposter Complex (like perfectionism, people-pleasing and diminishment etc.) and I attempt to unpack some of that here.

Speaking of undoing, I recognize that in my earliest works, I may have been reductive in my analysis of the Imposter Complex, which has maybe felt like bypassing for some. My podcast attempts to resolve some of that. Deepening into my body of work is exceptionally important to me. But doing it with care matters even more. I’m endlessly grateful to my coach Desiree Adaway for her unwavering support in these waters.

My deepest wish is some Grand Unified Theory on the Imposter Complex… but it’s, erm, complex. So I keep uncovering the layers. Imperfectly.

I have a daily journaling practice, and I'm not sure that I'm doing it right. (Ha!)

I could probably subsist on salad, popcorn, and cherries for all the days, but let me be clear: that salad would be loaded with all of the things and that popcorn will be swimming in butter and nutritional yeast or romano cheese.

I'm pretty sure that most of us spend half of our time wondering how we got so old. Further to that: I can never seem to remember if I like orange juice with extra pulp or no pulp. Related: I have a million notes of pithy aphorisms...and I am perpetually unsure of their source. Mine? Someone else’s? Case in point: "There are no launch codes to your life, your art, your movement. There is just the decision." (If you know the source, please share with me.)

I started drinking black coffee about a month after my dad died which I find strange and fascinating and also totally on-brand for our relationship. Speaking of coffee… I adore coffee dates with Staci and am pretty sure that being handed a steaming hot cup of coffee by my husband is my love language.

Cooking is joy for me.

So is my husband, Greg.

So is travelling. I adore traveling, but eco-anxiety is real my friends, and I am working hard to make sure that travel is saved for pleasure more so than work and have started doing way more webinars for corporations and organizations than speaking gigs. This cuts down on air travel and their costs. Win-win. Speaking of eco-anxiety, my friend Suzanne will be hosting a workshop in Austin in March. Speaking of Austin I'll be there in June — anyone want to set up a meet-up? Full circle.

I share more more more about what I love here in this ten year old article. Much is still true. Some of it is not.

I’m in my head about virtue signaling a LOT.

I’m on day 4 of JOY30. A 30 day exploration I created for myself as I was feeling under-resourced. Happy to share the outcomes once it’s wrapped.

A client once told me that I help people cross over an invisible line that was once a wall. That’s feels like the everything in my coaching work.

If you are up against a wall in your work, leadership and actualization, you can book a call with me here.

I’m glad you’re here. I’m grateful you’re here.


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.

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Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

On running, celebrating, and the Ego

If you’ve been around these parts for any amount of time, you’ll know that ABOUT once a year, I decide to pick up running again.

I give it a couple of chances to woo me and if it doesn’t, I get back to the gym.

Similarly, if you’ve been around these parts for any amount of time, you’ll know that I’m more than a little obsessed with celebrating.

So this letter is about running AND celebrating.

I was trying to find my groove earlier this week.

I made a deal with myself that I would take a break once I got to the streetlights about ½ km (¼ mile) away. I was also thinking about the FB Live I had done earlier in the week with my FB Group about how the Imposter Complex wants us to doubt our capacity. (You can check that out by joining that group here.)

In answer to the question, “How do we trust more deeply in our capacity (if the Imposter Complex is so obsessed with having us doubt it)?” I say “by learning to celebrate.”

Celebration is an integration of the work done. It conditions us for more. And though I know it challenges the very best of us, it (mostly) feels bloody good.

So imagine my surprise when I was thinking about this and hit the goal of the streetlight and kept running.

Now, I hear that you’re celebrating me (hey thanks!) I hear you’re happy that I found a little more gas in my tank and kept going.

Here’s the thing:

We can’t just honour our word to ourselves in doing the HARD stuff. No… we need to honour our word in the sweet stuff too. When you say to yourself you’re going to do a thing, DO THE THING.

It’s how we learn to trust ourselves.

Like when I said I was going to reward myself for a BIG business milestone reached, by booking a trip with my family, I had to do it. Even as I wanted to tweak the goal when I got there… because all of a sudden, it didn’t feel BIG enough of a goal. Even though it was bigger than anything I could have imagined a year ago. ‘Cause THAT, my friends, is how the ego works. It wants to want more than it wants to get.

(Read that again…)

And so I took the break. And it felt good. And I realized I had even MORE in the tank than I thought. Best run yet. Feeling wooed and ready for more.


PS - Know what else I want to celebrate? The end of you slipping your amazing brilliance into the water. If you want help learning how to give that up, let’s talk.

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I have known Christina Rasmussen for MANY many years. Truly a star. In every sense of the word. Like, stellar and otherworldly. Take me at my word. I was delighted and honoured to speak with her on her podcast, which, unsurprisingly given the host, is uniken any other that I’ve done before. I told stories I did NOT expect to tell. We laughed, we communed. It was deeply nourishing. May it be so for you as well.


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.

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Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

Starting from here

Hey Friends -

I didn’t manage to write you the first Friday Finale of 2020 last week.

That was not an impeccable start to the year, much as that has been top of mind, but the truth is, I was feeling somewhat tender.

In the previous Friday Finale, (December 27th), I had shared a pretty personal letter about what was going on in my heart on the anniversary of my mother’s passing as well as my desire to reach new folx with our Ready Enough podcast.

That’s what this Friday Finale newsletter is intended to be — a letter from me to you. One that shows you what’s happening behind the scenes (the highlights and lowlights) AS WELL as making sure you know about some things I think are exciting.

And a reader, who is clearly not a fan of AOC...nor me, slapped my hand back in a rather vitriolic way.

I’m human. And it stung.

To be clear, I’ve had plenty of criticism in the past from readers. Conscious critique is very welcome. Hateful language, nope.

So last week, I allowed myself the grace of staying quiet. Especially given it was the anniversary of my father’s passing. (Yes, he died a week — and thirteen years — after my Mom did. It’s a rough week every year.)

But this is a NEW week.

And I’m excited and looking ahead to what’s coming in for 2020. Specifically:

There’s a way that things are getting simpler and truer and, yes, more impeccable.

AND, I suspect there will be some jogs along the path. Liiiiike...today I’ll be on-set with House and Home magazine sharing my Dad’s pierogi recipe. (Strange but true).

And that’s just the kind of year 2020 is shaping up to be.
For me.

How about for you?
I’d love to hear from you.
Human to human.

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When Oprah gets to meet a client you had the joy of working with, that MUST be shared, right? Where I talk about impeccabilityKomal Minhas is talking excellence. And I’m HERE for it.

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The best writing I did in 2019 was in this chateau in the French Pyrennees at my dear client Deb Nicholson’s writing retreat. If your book (or script) is calling you in 2020, she has room in her June session.


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.

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Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

I WOULD LOVE YOUR HELP PLEASE AND THANK YOU!

Yikes. What a serious breach of etiquette!

I haven’t wished you a happy holidays and blasted straight to the asking for a favour part.

I do apologize.

The truth of it is that I’ve been pretty tender this holiday season. I wrote this post a long time ago after my Mom’s death (which was 15 years ago today, by the way), and I’ve been a little quieter around the holidays than ever before.

As I shared on this IG post“And I’m fine. Because I’m not forcing myself to rally. Nor berating myself for being weepy. Nor requiring myself to do anything more than half measure. Nor judging myself for being some Grinch-like.”

So I am fine.

And focused on what I want to create more of in 2020. And more is a life fully lived.

Which has me thinking about my beloved Ready Enough podcast. And this is where you come in.

As a mentor, trainer and speaker about the Imposter Complex, I acknowledge the lens from which I approach this work as a white able-bodied, cishet, neurotypical woman of middle class means living in North America...and that is CERTAINLY not everyone else's lived experience.

The Ready Enough podcast has two goals:

1) To learn from folx who experience the IC at different intersections from me and to connect THEM with my listeners in case they are more appropriate mentors/coaches. I am not for everyone and the folx I interview are gold standard people.

2) To highlight the fact that yes, it MAY be the IC that's in the way...and it may be something else (and/or both). I used to think that anything that kept us:

a) out of action
b) doubting our capacity
c) staying alone and isolated

was the IC.

I was wrong.

This podcast aims to correct that. There is a whole world that lives inside of that "something else". Like a response to racism, fatphobia, transphobia or a management of alcohol abuse, anxiety, colonialism, and trauma. Those are just some of the issues we've addressed so far with the Ready Enough podcast.

We have some exciting interviews coming up in the new year. Folx who experience the "bamboo ceiling", who live with autism, and a couple of other things that don't yet have titles.

My asks:

1) Do you know any experts who have lived with and now help folx with managing lived experiences with ageism, lack of intergenerational wealth, chronic pain and toxic work environments? I would love to learn about their work and then perhaps invite them onto the show.

2) Are there other experts who think I should interview who work with people in specific areas that may present as the IC? (THINK BIG...I'm not afraid of receiving any no's.) Honestly, I’m planning on reaching out to AOC after this tweet.

3) Are there any podcasts you love that you think I ought to pitch as a guest? (And for anyone interested in doing interviews in 2020, feel free to follow along with the recommendations!)

4) Will you give the podcast a listen then share and rate/review so more people can find it? To do so on iTunes, remember you need to do that IN the app!

One of my favourite reviews so far said this:

“So many in the self-development/empowerment sphere approach their work from the “it’s ALL about mindset!” angle, without acknowledging structural obstacles or social context. Tanya teaches with the complexity, nuance and responsibility these topics deserve. I love listening to her conversations with fascinating and inspiring people doing brilliant work in the world.”

And THAT is my everything, friends.

So, those are my asks.
Thank you for anyone who can meet me there.
And like I’ve said: I’m sending love to those of you with the tender hearts and the tough skin, and those of you with the tender skin and tough hearts and everything in between.

.

We’re gonna be fine. And sometimes fine is plenty.


PS - For real...who can connect me to AOC?

PPS - When you need a break from MY podcast, treat yourself to Roots of Lore. It’s my brilliant Ops Manager’s podcast and is sweet balm for my heart this season. It’s wise and poetic and welcome respite.


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.

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Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

Messages to our 18 year old selves...and to us.

Earlier this week I had the supreme honour of getting to work with a group of young leaders aged 18-21 doing some incredibly change-making work.

Immigration reform.
Gun violence prevention.
Human trafficking rescue.

I was in awe of how brilliant they were. Are.

And my job was to come in and serve them tools to help overcome their Imposter Complex when it shows up...as it invariably does for ALL leaders.

They are high-achievers, to be certain. AND told with great frequency that their age is a liability. You feel the seething too, right?

So I showed up with the best of what I had and a resolve to serve deeply and truly. It was a beautiful and powerful morning for which I give deepest thanks.

Before I went in, I kept thinking about my own 18- 22-year-old self. What did I need to know? What would I have loved to know? I decided to crowdsource some wisdom from my Facebook Group as well as IG family to offer as a kind of a gift to these incredible lights.

And what came back for them was beautiful.
It was for them...but it was also for me.

And I suspect it was for you too.

So, here is the curated wisdom...messages to our 18-year-old selves.

“Just because something is hard doesn't mean that you're not good at it or shouldn't keep going. So often we think that if something is hard for us, it means that we aren't good at it. Take the time to decide if you're letting something go because you aren't interested in it and it doesn't serve you, or because it's hard and you're afraid to fail. Failing is often the best way forward. You will fail over and over and over again in your life, so start now, start when the stakes aren't as high, just start.”

“If you show up ready to contribute, you deserve to be there. Lots of people never choose to show up. (And be the one who encourages and helps others show up too. You never know what amazing things they can contribute.”

“Your lack of years of lived experience does not mute or invalidate your big, wild ideas on how to make our world a safer place. In fact, your fresh eyes offer a space to let the bright light of novel solutions into the room. Speak your ideas into existence.”

“You may not have the answer yet, but you WILL figure it out. Your life has shown you that.”

“Stay true to your dreams, don’t follow what culture is telling you you must do next.”

“Forge on, even if people may diminish your path to your dreams. You will stumble a lot of the time but you will get there.
You will also come across an incredible woman along the way who will help you slay those emeffing imposter complex jerks nagging at you to stop at every hurdle or success you come across. Listen to her, work with her, and love her with the fire of a thousand suns.”
 (pssst...can you guess who they were talking about?)

“Don’t assume that those in authority know better.”

“What others think of you is NOT your business.”

“Don’t allow the mean critical gaze and opinions of others to leach your energy.”

“Listen to the little voice that knows the depth of your value, heart, and talents. It’s true.”

“You will find your way. You will find your power. You will find your joy once you let go of what you think you’re supposed to be.”

And finally...someone quoted from my TEDx Talk: “You know more than you think and you’ll never know it all.”

Ahhhhhh. All of it.

Thank you for sharing this wisdom AND for receiving it.

Now, because I endeavour to listen as much as I speak, I want to share what they reflected back to me:

  1. Most mentors coming in to speak with them are NOT talking about intersectionality. Apparently I was the first. So listen up my beloved readers who are healers, coaches, and speakers: to walk into a space and presume that everyone is having a shared lived experience (to quote my friend Staci Jordan Shelton) is reductionist, overly simplistic and damaging. We need to DO better. I recommend learning from the teachers we highlight in the Ready Enough w/ Tanya Geisler Podcast.

  2. Boundaries continue to be a foreign concept to most and a sticking point to activation. I shared the work of Randi Buckley and McKensie Mack.

  3. Given the cutthroat nature of the post-secondary schools they attend, they were challenged to accept the belief that “your people” want you to succeed and that every Leader, Rockstar, and CEO I’ve ever worked with attributes their success to decisiveness, confidence, and leaning into the support of others. But I AM right about this. We are, still and always, better together. But at least I was able to impress upon them WHO their people are. Thanks be, once again to the inimitable words of Nayyirah Waheed:

    some people
    when they hear
    your story.
    contract.
    others
    upon hearing
    your story.
    expand.
    and
    this is how
    You
    know. - Nayyirah Waheed

Maybe it was time you were reminded again who “your people” are too.

And what I know above all after that training I delivered is this:
The [young adults] are really alright.
Give thanks and let’s lift ‘em high.


PS - You may not be 18 - 21 any longer, but I know you’re a leader doing some epic stuff. But if you’re feeling like your industry’s best kept secret, you’ll want to check out my newest free training on the Five Shifts required to Overcome the Imposter Complex. The response to the training is overwhelmingly positive and I’m so glad to have done it.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

If you’re seeking perfection, you’re likely missing the point.

A couple of weeks back, we hosted a family “fundue” party with some dear old friends who have become family.

We laughed and talked about travel, colonialism, and generally caught up over melted gruyère followed by panettone dipped in chocolate. It was sublime.

After our friends left, and my husband, kid and I took to cleaning up the dishes, our conversation turned to parenting.

As I handed her a dishtowel, my daughter looked me in the eye and thanked me for something I said to her when she was five.

Apparently, at that tender age, I told her that it was pretty much certain that I would mess her up, inadvertently, in ways we would never quite know until they had happened.

You can imagine the immediacy of the sucker punch I felt, right?

But I held her beautiful eyes in my gaze and asked how that had impacted her.

She said at the time it scared her. (No doubt.) But that over the years, she came to find great comfort in those words. (In fact, with gruyère still clearly on her mind, she said the words got better with age like cheese. Funniest kid.)

She came to understand that what I meant was that I was going to be WITH her nomaddawhat. That I would be entirely imperfect in my love and care and would mess things up and do reparations when needed.

Because if my intention was to be perfect as a mother, I was missing the point.

Holy shit, right?

How often have we allowed our desire for perfectionism...in ANYTHING...to make us miss the point?

Our email provider tells us that precisely 50% of you, dear readers, are in the US. Which means that maybe you are celebrating Thanksgiving, maybe you are not. But many of you will be spending time with friends and family.

My invitation to you is to choose presence over perfection.

In fact, that goes for all of us.

In all you do, today, this weekend, and as you stare down the barrel of the new decade, choose presence over perfection.

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I was honoured and delighted to be invited back onto The Copywriter Club podcast. Kira and Rob are genius and brilliant at what they do, and it lead us to excellently deep waters. And APPARENTLY, I am the first person in 162 episodes to mention a sea anemone, so there’s that. I also helped Rob access his Brand of Joy...and I’m glad I did. (You can also check out my FIRST interview with them here. It’s an excellent primer.)

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Last week, I interviewed Nicole Lewis-Keeber on the Ready Enough podcast. We talked about the relationship between trauma and the Imposter Complex. Because...SERIOUSLY CONNECTED. What has been resonating the most with listeners is her understanding of the understanding of our Inner Critics as being protectors of our “Inner Kiddos” and the depth of wisdom that lives there. That was a huge takeaway for me too. Would love to hear yours.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

Worth repeating: “We are simply better together”

This week has me thinking a LOT about togetherness and belonging. Birthdays and gatherings and how they make me feel the absolute essence of my Brand of Joy.

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(This picture does a good job of articulating said joy. This was me welcoming to my home the first car of brilliant lights from the 2019 Academy for the pre-gala kickoff. Look at those fingers…can you just feel the delight? That’s how I feel when I gather my people.)

There is a universality to belonging and wanting to belong, and that's what the Imposter Complex is deeply concerned about: where we belong and where we don't belong.

Google “Tanya Geisler” and “belonging” and you’ll see it’s kind of a central theme.

In my life and in my body of work.

And of course, there is a world of difference between belonging and fitting in.

I came across my own words on this earlier last week when I was about to zig and make a decision that would most assuredly take me off course.

“I have made countless choices in my own life that have been informed by my own lizard brain: I have used a voice that wasn’t my own; shared opinions that weren’t my own; exhibited styles that weren’t my own; and professed love that wasn’t my own. Every one of these choices has led me down a path of discontent, all in the name of fitting in.”

So then I zagged with great intention, because, seriously. Who has time for paths of discontent?

And it was good.

And so, IN this thinking on togetherness and fitting in and belonging, I decided to do a thing I honestly did not think I would ever do. At least not in 2019. I decided to create a Facebook group devoted to discussions around the Imposter Complex.

Because the Imposter Complex wants to keep us alone and isolated, our job is to do the OPPOSITE. Let’s circle up.

No one needs to go this alone. In fact, no one should. Community matters. Togetherness matters.

The group is the place where I will be showing up daily to answer Q’s and help you play the game of whack-a-mole with the Imposter Complex when it creeps in. I’ll be creating videos and resources to help you rock out all that you are here to do with impeccable impact. Like...earlier this week, I did a video on Lie #4 of the Imposter Complex: “You have nothing useful or valuable to say”. And it helped.

 
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Once a day, I’ll be there. Hammer in hand. And discernment too.

And once a week, I’ll shoot a video. Next Tuesday at 3p EST, as voted by the group, I’ll be talking about Lie #9 “It’s just a matter of time before this all crumbles beneath you”. Ouch, right?

Join us there...and tell your friends. Because seriously, the best way to overcome it is to NAME it. .

PS - If you’d like to go straight to talking about where zigging when you mean to zag is getting in the way of your impeccable impact, let’s get on a call. Head over here to see my calendar. Grab the appointment time works for you. Then you'll be taken to a quick application form and away we go.

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This week on the Ready Enough podcast, I was joined by the deeply wise, deeply generous McKensie Mack. Our conversation was super rich and dug deep into boundaries, healing from systemic injustice and inequity, and will give you plenty of food for thought and room to grow if you let it in.

And if you liked what you heard, please take a minute today to share this podcast with someone who is leveling up and feeling less-than-confident. Or, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts because it helps us reach new listeners.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

Hurricanes and Accountability, oh my.

Hellooooo Dear Ones -

Apparently right after the last Friday Finale I wrote to you, I needed to stress test the words I had vowed into.

Remember when I said:

“Second best ain’t the thing, friend.
Not for me.
Not for you.
Not for any of us.
Step UP and don’t settle.
In and for anything.”?

I do. Because those damned words HAUNTED me just as soon as they were published.

Right around the time the Sept 27th Friday Finale landed in your inbox, we got a text from my mother-in-law saying that a category five hurricane was headed straight towards the Azores...the destination for our 20th wedding anniversary getaway.

CATEGORY. FIVE.

When I say this NEVER happens in the Azores, I mean it does not ever happen. (Google “best beach vacation during Hurricane season” and watch the sapphire blue ocean pictures of this paradisiacal place start show up.)

But it was to hit landfall right when our plane would be touching down.

And though I travel a LOT...I am still a nervous traveller. And a nervous mother leaving her (less nervous) daughter behind.

So the weekend leading up to the Monday departure was fraught with indecision, obsessive checking of the hurricane path and weather reports, and frantic transatlantic calls to the hotel for news. Plus arguing. Can’t forget the arguing.

We crafted about twelve different Plan Bs, but with each one, my words haunted me:

“Second best ain’t the thing, friend.
Not for me.
Not for you.
Not for any of us.
Step UP and don’t settle.
In and for anything.”

Blergh.

Not ONE Plan B came remotely close to the waterfalls, adventure, sunrises AND sunsets, thermal baths, countryside, ocean AND mountains we had come to look forward to every time we closed our eyes since planning the trip back in March.

But...HURRICANE.

So on Sunday, we decided to cancel the trip. We were sad, but felt it was the safest and most responsible thing to do. I say “we” but “he” is less risk averse than I am. Sooooo...it was unsatisfactory.

On Monday morning, we saw our flight had NOT been canceled and was on time. Meaning the airline knew it was safer than we did.

I was worried about draining the resources by being there but the weather map showed our destination island to be entirely clear weather the entire time we were to be there. Some clouds on the actual day of the hurricane’s arrival. Maybe less than 1mm of rain.

We decided to go.

It was one of the scariest decisions I’ve ever made and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t avail myself of an extra glass of wine in the airport lounge, but we did it.

Because I said what I said and I meant what I said.

“Step up and don’t settle.”

Accountability can be a nagging beast.

But it sure can be thanked for making some magical memories.

Upcoming Ready Enough podcast guest Lena West once said to me “if it weren’t for accountability, I wouldn’t get anything done”. I’m with Lena...it’s my top Imposter Complex hacking ninja move.

Name the thing out loud, then do the thing.

I’m not advocating putting yourself in danger. Ever. But I am advocating holding reverence for the thing you want by creating accountability around it...then watching the magic happen.

The book.
The regimen.
The decision.
The ask.
The pitch.
The leap.
THE BIG THING.

Integrity, ammirite?

PS - For anyone curious about the outcome of the hurricane Lorenzo, it peaked Sept 29th in the ocean and by Oct 2, it hit the westernmost islands and did significant damage to roads and seaside homes of Faial, but thankfully, no deaths reported. (And no impact on our island of São Miguel Island whatsoever.)

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Last week, I was joined on the Ready Enough podcast by Elizabeth Dialto. She’s BRILL. We talked about Queen status and how you can embrace yours, how perfectionism is extremely isolating, and how we tend to romanticize, dramatize, or minimize in all our relationships. We talked about her relationship with shame and why transparency is a huge part of WHY she doesn’t struggle with the Imposter Complex as much as many of the folx I meet. And Elizabeth breaks down the four parts of her curriculum, Arc of Power, which have allowed her to deepen into this work as well.

I also LOVED when she so beautifully declared that we're basically NEVER ready for anything, and therefore we're ALWAYS ready.

Yes, of course. Can we ever really be 100% ready for anything?

We're never ready. And so we're always ready. Ahhhhh.

If you are a fan of this show, let me… let US and let others know that this podcast matters by leaving a review on iTunes and letting us know you are HERE.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

After 20 years of marriage, I think I finally got through to him.

Wednesday night was our 20th wedding anniversary. Twenty years of making mistakes and then making repair. Twenty years of building a home and a family and a life. Twenty years of making each other laugh.

But this post isn’t about that.

Well...it kind of is.

But not really.

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Okay. For our anniversary dinner, we decided to go to the restaurant that is arguably Toronto’s best right now.

We stumbled upon it two years ago and ended up magically with the best table in the house. Corner table, snowy night. It was magical. And ridiculously expensive and totally worth it.

It has become SO popular by now, that reservations can only be made one month (to the day) in advance. My husband essentially speed dialled on August 25th to get a fabulous table, but despite his best efforts, we ended up with a tiny table in the bar area. No big plush corner table for us this time.

Okay...so in the context of the shit show we have playing out in the world all around us, this is really not a big thing, and so of course, we stayed, ate well, and had a fantastic time. Like we do together. But/and it was ridiculously expensive and we couldn’t wait to get home.

This morning, my husband texted this to me:

“My takeaway is that if we’re going to spend we shouldn’t accept the spendee’s second best offering. We can always find what we want.

And THAT, is how I know I’ve finally gotten through to him after twenty years.

Second best ain’t the thing, friend.

Not for me.

Not for you.

Not for any of us.

Step UP and don’t settle.

In and for anything.

All love,

Tanya

PS - Thank you for your responses to last week’s birthday request...I’m working on pieces around forgiveness, Imposter Complex help for your kiddos, and holding power with integrity. They’re gooooooood. And taking their time to coalesce. Because second best writing isn’t good enough for you.

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For my birthday, and in the spirit of only serving you up the BEST, I wanted to share some of my favourite folx’s offerings. All of these are love links, not affiliate links <3


Have you noticed that I FINALLY caved and am spelling Imposter Complex with an “e” not an “o”? Yeah. SEO made me do it. Actually, it’s the brilliant Meg Casebolt that made me do it because she is committed to help me get FOUND. Bless.

But what about you? Keen on more traffic on your website? Meg is an SEO specialist who teaches entrepreneurs how to show up on Google, and next month she’s running a free challenge called SEOctober.

A new, free 5-minute training every weekday to write blog posts that will help your ideal clients find you on Google.

Sign up today at SEOctober.com

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One of my absolute favourite teachers, Staci Jordan Shelton is offering a 7-week intensive program called ANEW. And it is WHEW.

“Because the first thing you need to do to have success is to get free from the lies people who benefit from your captivity taught you.”

I repeat: WHEW.

ANEW it is about allowing yourself to tell the truth about your life and the world, give yourself permission to have, do and be in a different and more liberated way, and start living from that space.

On October 6th the doors open...and spots are in high demand.

It's 7 weeks of truth, exploration, examination, and working towards emancipation. She will help you develop your 2020 Liberation and Success Plan. Trust me.


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And finally, I’ve mentioned that I will no longer be running the nine-month Starring Role Academy I’ve loved so hard for the past three years. (Even if that exquisite gala weekend damned near almost made me change my mind!) I did say that last year, and I was correct. I'm indeed pivoting a little, and I’m excited about serving my folx even better than ever because this pivot will allow for that.

But for anyone who was anticipating jumping into the Academy for 2020, I wanted to tell you about Jo Casey's Supernova Collective. It's similar in scope to what the Academy was (nine months, solid container, brilliant collective wisdom, kickass coaching - heh) and Jo is truly a gift. I've had the privilege of working with her closely IN the Academy over the last two years so I KNOW what heart she pours into everything that she does. And how fiercely she wants on behalf of her clients...and how far they go with that kind of support. Seriously...she is incredible.

I also got to witness her teaching a workshop in my home on Monday so I'm even more in awe of how she does what she does.

Get on the phone with her and see if the Supernova Collective is the right place for you. 

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Photo credit: Lindyn Williams

That’s it from me this week. Tomorrow, I’ll be wearing my birthday crown and next week I’ll be in the Azores on an anniversary trip with my man, but feel free to follow along with the hiking, sunrises AND sunsets over on IG.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

An early birthday request from me to you.

This week, my friends. This WEEK.

Phew.

There were the things that I just did (like a speaking gig with some fantastic folx at Wealthsimple) and then there were the things that just about did me in.

This is the week I wrap up the nine months of the Starring Role Academy. That final call just about did me in. The sacredness of gathering hearts does that.

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We evicted a squirrel (humanely). Watching her try to get back into that space just about did me in. Knowing the sanctity of home does that.

I took my Masterminders to see Lizzo last night. And her absolute fierce love for her self her art and her audience just about did me in. Seeing folx fully stepped into their starring roles does that.

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As you’re reading this, I’ll be stringing faerie lights in my yard with my Ops manager, Caitlin, in advance of the party I’ll be throwing as the kickoff to the celebration weekend we have planned for those who have completed the 2019 Starring Role Academy. And knowing this is the last celebration weekend I’ll be hosting will just about do me in...once I get that in my bones.

You see, as much as I have loved running the Academy over nine months these past three years and as powerful as it has (always) been, I suspected last year this would be the final cohort...and I was right.

So that’s where you’ll find me this weekend. A blend of feeling joy and grief and relief and celebration and humanness...the one with the water bottle, hydrating like it’s her job.

Next week I’ll be integrating the goodness that has been...and celebrating my birthday on Saturday.

I want to make sure I am of service to YOU in the midst of this integration, so an early birthday gift to ME, is to reply to this with something that you would love to hear me write about. Maybe I'll even do up a video Q+A. Who knows?

With love love love to you for you.

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For this week’s episode of Ready Enough with Tanya Geisler, I was joined by the one and only Nic Strack. Nic is an Empowerment Coach for Moms. A little background...

Nic was with me in LAST year’s cohort of the Starring Role Academy (that pic is of them at the aforementioned gala!) and watching them step into their Starring Role as Nic (insert glorious swear word here) Strack? It was EVERYTHING and like a glorious full circle for ME to have them on the podcast.

But for YOU, I am hoping Nic’s strong message about parenting (and in truth? Doing just about ANYTHING that matters) will reach you right where we intended it to. In your core.

They also gave me lots to think about as it relates to repair. And of course, how self love isn’t just about mimosas and face masks, my friends.

Listen in here for the goodness and hit Nic and I up on IG to let us know what you discovered.

And if you’re enjoying what you’re hearing with the podcast, will you do me the honor of leaving a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service? It helps new listeners discover us and the message we want to share with the world. Thank you in advance!

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We talked Zombie apocalypse (turns out I will be woefully unprepared), the Imposter Complex, and ham roll-ups...I loved this conversation I had with Janelle Allen of Zen Courses. She asks really smart questions.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

Calling forth the Rockstars

Our daughter entered 10th grade this week.

In my (requisite?!) IG post, I didn’t want to make it about me, but rather the glorious glitterstar of resolve and play and tenacity that she is.

But in truth, I can’t help thinking a lot about grade 10. MY grade 10.

That was the year I decided to leave the people I had known since Kindergarten and moved to a brand new high school where I only knew two people. (Two tennis-playing cuties, as it happened, so there was THAT.)

It was the year I thought long and hard about who I wanted to be.
It was the year I thought long and hard about who I was becoming.
It was the year I thought about what conditions would support my success.
It was the year I decided.
It was the year I defied my parents by following through on this decision.
It was the year I stress-tested who I could be.
It was the year I really came into my own.
It was the year I touched into what I would later come to feel as my inner Rockstar.

I knew who I was. I knew what I believed in. And I took action.

It was a good year.

My pal Tiffany Han told me a couple of weeks back that I do my best work with Rockstars with a pebble in their shoe.

I have devoted much of my career (so far) in trying to understand the pebble in the shoe. And said pebble, for me, is and always has been the Imposter Complex.

How and why it got there and the systemic and situational circumstances that got it there are the reason underneath my Ready Enough podcast.

But, and… earlier this week, I took Helen Tremethick’s Manifesto Masterclass. I figured I was there to figure out how to articulate this pebble better.

Nope. Turns out it was more about calling forth that Rockstar.

And what makes them a Rockstar.

For me, it comes down to folx who are filled with Integrity, have Presence and take Action… in short, are working towards unshakeable confidence.

Like my grade 10 self. Like my grade 10 daughter.

Are they always locked ‘n loaded in Integrity, action, and presence? Which is to say, are they always operating from unshakeable confidence? Helllll no. But they are working towards it. And they know how much farther and faster they can and will go without said pebble in their shoe.

And that’s what I do.

Like a Rockstar.

I give deepest thanks to Helen and her class for helping me to see this with such startling clarity.

For helping me to see myself better.

And you better. The Rockstar you are.

PS - Helen is running the Manifesto Masterclass again on Sept 9th at 2p EST and I HIGHLY recommend you show up. Pen and paper in hand and SHOW UP like the Rockstar you are. Register here.

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Beyond loved my most recent interview on the Ready Enough podcast. My guest was Meg Lightheart, a presentation coach for people with a vision and a leadership coach for people facing uncertainty, complexity, and mess.

But more specifically, we talk about how the Imposter Complex loves to get into and under or activate our perfectionism and how it tag teams with humility to become diminishment. Meg shares her experience in how the Imposter Complex shows up for her as a trans feminine person who uses she/her pronouns. Because the Imposter Complex is obsessed with binaries and certainty and all or nothing. So, we get into where this plays into the idea of “trans enough.” I think you’re going to love this conversation.

AND if you are a fan of the show, let me… let US and let others know that this podcast matters by leaving a review on iTunes and letting us know you are HERE.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

“You could fill a football field with all I don’t know about…”

There have been many times in my life I have uttered the phrase “you could fill a football field with all that I don’t know about…” and this has served as a kind of insulation. A flame-retardant fiberglass, perhaps, that would make sure to, well… insulate me from the flaming spears of… something. But, what?

The flaming spears of my ignorance?

The flaming spears of others’ expectations?

Both?

Could be.

Listen up, friends.

I spend a LOT of time unpacking and addressing the Imposter Complex.

It wants to keep you out of action, doubting your capacity, and alone and isolated.

And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt this truth:

You know more than you think. AND? You’ll never know it all.

So, of course.

Do your due diligence
Fill the gaps.
Invest in your intentions.
To be certain.

And also.

Spend a little more time revelling in all that you HAVE figured out.

As an entrepreneur, you didn’t know SHIT about bookkeeping, copywriting, social media, marketing, but you figured it out.

As a manager, you didn’t know the first thing about HR, leadership, org charts and having tough conversations, but you figured it out.

As a parent, you didn’t know squat about first aid, ECE, diaper choices, attachment parenting (or not), but you figured it out.

YOU FIGURED IT OUT.

Which, if I’m not mistaken, is the most transferable and compelling skills one can possess as a human.

I’m on the precipice of launching, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, an evergreen program of my lauded and celebrate Starring Role Academy. And I am scaaaaaared of the football stadium that represents all that I don’t know.

And yet.

When I break it all down.

It is clearly aligned with who I am as everything has been that I have been proud of.
I have known what is essential with plenty of room for what is desired.
I have held space for hundreds impeccably and imperfectly.
I have created intimacy AND modelled boundaries.
I know this… and what I don’t know, I WILL figure out.

I did it then. I will do it now.

You did it then. You will do it now.

I will, you will be brilliant.

I will, you will figure it out.

Your brilliance is a renewable source of energy.

So IS your resourcefulness.

You are ready enough. And so am I.

And I’m ready for kick-off. Stadium filled, or not.

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I am seriously keen on you listening in on my latest Ready Enough podcast.

Staci Jordan Shelton brought her inimitable fire, heart, and soul to the conversation.

She talks about unraveling the lies in ways that are uncommon and yet, feel ancient.

She speaks into spaces being common, but experiences, less so.

She speaks into sovereignty and power and IS grace.

I hope you listen in and heed her wisest counsel. Click here to listen.

And, because transparency matters so much to me, I would be lying if I did not acknowledge how disheartened I am that I’ve seen a lot of unsubscribes since we started sharing the podcast.

So, if you are a fan, let me… let US and let others know that this podcast matters by leaving a review on iTunes and letting us know you are HERE.

Thank you.

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The last couple of weeks of summer are a languishing blink of an eye. It’s that hours are long and the days are fast feeling.

BBQs, docks, ice cream trucks, garden centres, paddle boards, sweet tomatoes and herbaceous basil.

Longer afternoons that seem shorter and dappling light that seems crisper.

Both, and.

I am celebrating holding with both hands and letting some of the juice run through my fingers.

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I am honoured and thrilled to be a guest expert in my friend Nicole Lewis-Keeber's upcoming program "Love Your Business School".

Don't you want to love your business? Isn't that the reason you started it in the first place? Sigh. Falling in love is easy. Staying in love takes commitment.

I will be teaching/sharing about the Imposter Complex and Unshakeable Confidence alongside several other stellar experts including Michelle Lewis, Alethea Cheng Fitzpatrick, Christine Gallo, and Mara Clements. I am so excited to be in such exquisite and learned company.

Because...everything is better in community. Including coming back to loving your business.

There are still a couple of spaces in the program, so check it out. You will deeply benefit from Nicole's strong teaching and stronger heart, from the phenomenal community gathering, and I would love love love to get the honour of teaching you. Join here.

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Show your intentions you’re serious about them.

Hire the teacher.
Make the time.
Do your due diligence.

I can mantra like it’s my job, but if I don’t follow up with an investment of time, resources or energy? Nah.

Are you following me on Instagram? Find me right here.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

The Power of the Pause.

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We are on holiday in South Carolina and trying to get out to the tennis court most mornings.

I suspect you didn’t know that in my youth, I was kind of a badass in that sport. Ranked ‘n all.

These days, I get maybe three games in a year, so to say I’m “rusty” is kind. But/and… just the other morning, I was reminded how powerful my serve really is. Knocks my husband off his feet when he dares come in too close and underestimates my power (if you smell the whiff of foreshadowing, you’re not wrong). And also? I don’t knock him off his feet like THIS, but still… too close, Dude.

There are two things required for a brilliant serve in tennis.

A solid handle on the racket face orientation and the toss.

“Cut the cake, sweep the floor, scratch your back, swat the fly.”

Those are the tennis racket orientations needed for a basic tennis serve I was taught when I was about five years old. And every time I go to serve, I chant it in my head.

So clearly, I have the racket orientation down pat with all that cake, rug and fly attention.

But the toss, friends. The Toss.

I generally rush it. I toss too low so my reach is shortened and the ball streaks into the net. Or I toss too far out in front of me and need to chase it and don’t have control of where it ends up. Or I toss it too far behind that has me hitting the ball way at the top of the racket and the ball ends up long.

I don’t have the stats on it, but most of my serving faults can be attributed to rushing the toss.

(Foreshadowing requited. Can you feel the metaphor coming on?)

Most of my FAULTS can be attributed to rushing.

Period.

MOST OF MY FAULTS CAN BE ATTRIBUTED TO RUSHING.

You too?

Rushing to toss.
Rushing to say yes.
Rushing to accept.
Rushing to say more words.
Rushing to overexplain.
Rushing to launch.
Rushing to rush.

So why do I rush?

Because I have so much else to do?
I am worried about wasting others’ time?
I don’t want to hold court for too long?
I am concerned I won’t be seen as powerful or decisive if I don’t act immediately?

Nah.

None of that holds water.

Most powerful interview you’ve ever heard...she paused to collect her thoughts, right?

Yeah. She did.

Lie #6 of the Imposter Complex implores us to say too much about our experience: “You must tell EVERYONE about this experience.”

I invite you to pause and ask: “Why am I sharing the fact that I feel I don’t belong. Am I trying to bridge connection, or curry favour?”

Pausing is a power move.

And you are worth the wait.

Pause.

Let the ball drop. And toss it again.

Get it as right for YOU as you would like.

Then serve that ball down the line with all of your power and ace them off their feet.

Surprise yourself.

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This most recent episode of the Ready Enough Podcast was outstanding. My friend Vanessa Mentor came THROUGH with the truth.

Vanessa is a freedom catalyst/ Life Coach and she helps women take better care of themselves and live a life that feels right for them. But living in Haiti, a place where many basic needs are being unmet by most around her and self-actualization seems beyond frivolous, Vanessa has a unique perspective to share about the tension of belonging, impact, and privilege.

Click here to listen.

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This time with my family has been sublime. This month of July has seen me in France, Spain, Quebec, Boulder and now South Carolina, The fact that I get to do this...travel for work AND play is something I am celebrating heartily.

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My friend and content strategist, Lacy Boggs, is opening the doors to her Content Intelligence Academy program LIVE for the first time in about three years.

I started working with Lacy a couple of years ago to try to get a handle on alllllllll the content I create — trying to wrap my head around what kinds of things should be articles, versus podcasts, versus a Friday Finale…

And she and her system have helped me find much needed clarity to help me focus my efforts around creating content.

Because, while I love to write and am called to share my aha moments and downloads from the universe with you — I’m not always clear on how to use those thoughts to move my business forward.

Maybe that sounds like you because:

That’s the missing link between just blogging and truly “content marketing” — and I know that Lacy’s program can help you bridge the gap.

In this program, she’s sharing the same strategies and techniques Lacy uses with her 1:1 clients including me, our friend Tara McMullin, Melanie Duncan, Leonie Dawson and many more.

And they’re the same tips, tricks, and “aha” moments that have helped hundreds of entrepreneurs who have already trusted Lacy enough to go through Content Intelligence Academy — and achieve fabulous results.

Right now, you have the opportunity to access all this strategy goodness for yourself to turn your content marketing into the powerful, low-cost lever that can skyrocket your business to greater success...

help you hit that business goal you’ve been daydreaming about and doodling on the back of your notebook (you know the one)...

and finally feel like you have a handle on how to use your content to actually move your business forward!

CHECK IT OUT here, and let me know if you’ve got questions!!!


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

Say yes.

This was the second time I’d done it.

The first time was to NYC to be a part of Julie Parker’s Inspiration Day. I said these words in my speech then.

“We are all witness today to a woman’s dream coming true. That’s something I would travel across the world to see any day”

I meant it.

I did it again last week.

This time to the foothills of the Pyrennees in France.

My client, Deb Nicholson, had dreamt of a writing retreat in her chosen home town of Lapradelle.

For 18 months, I’ve known it would be happening and that I would say yes to the invitation.

It wasn’t easy. There were costs. There always are.

We think that yeses are supposed to be simple. Flowing. Filled with serenity.

They are not.

Many nos are required to make a yes happen.

Favours called in.
Agreements negotiated.
Time found and spun thin enough to fit through the eye of a needle.
Decisions weighed against metrics of desire and practicality and competing priorities and ancient narratives of worthiness and beyond. Because...costs.

So I know the value of a yes and every single one offered to me is a gift to be cherished.

And every yes I offer is considered, at least by me, to be sacred.

So when I say, “say yes”, I need you to know I don’t take it lightly.

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I said yes to speaking at this retreat. And I am shifted for it.

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I said yes to writing at the retreat. And my proposal is done.

I said yes to a night in Barcelona with my pal Ronna. And I reclaimed a piece of my heart there.

And I said yes to a train trip with my daughter to Quebec City. I am writing these words to you as we bounce along the tracks. She has reached for my hand numerous times. She is happy. We will never forget this time. Ever. Ever.

It all starts with a yes.

Then we figure out the ways we will make it happen.

And it’s always worth it.

Always.

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At the retreat, we wrote down questions we wanted to have answered by the time we left the space.

And as a closing exercise, we offered each other wishes and counsel based on those questions. It was, in a word, rad.

I wrote this as an answer to a question too personal for me to share. But my answer was meant for her, and it was meant for you. (Fill in your own question being asked by your heart right now.)

“Should I ________?"

YES.

Are we done here?

No? Well, what else could be so for the questioning heart I know?

The one who gets to choose.

The one with the benevolent muse.

Because the choice is greater than yes or no, isn't it?

It's what comes next AFTER the yes or the no.

What lives beyond the choice?

What else is there?

EVERYTHING, Beloved.

Will you believe me if I told you you cannot pick wrong?

I'm right about this.

You get to choose.

And I get to vote.

YES.

Say yes. And yes again.

To the muse, to the call, to the invitation, to the bridge, to the ease.

Head to the east, guided by eagle who sees and knows what else is there is everything.

Eagle also votes yes, that cheeky sod.

Pack your bags, Dear One.

With talismans and a bib, for the juice of the peaches of possibility will drip down your chin on your way to the land of Everything.

And it starts with you choosing.

I pray you choose yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.”

Say yes, mes amis.

You will find a way to make it happen.

And you will not regret it.

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The newest episode of Ready Enough podcast with trans comedienne Dina Nina Martinez was released on Wednesday and ohmyEVERYTHING, it was good. She is a brilliant light and hilarious and deep and wise and I hope you love it, her, and the podcast enough to leave a review and follow her work.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

Better together. That’s just the truth of it.

shared earlier this week that I was in a Mastermind some years back with this week’s podcast guest, Andrea Owen.

And simultaneously, we have opened the doors to the Mastermind that I’m hosting (though we’re calling it an Immersion, because...that’s what we’re going to be doing. GOING IN DEEP.)

So it’s not surprising that I’m getting comments and Q’s from my readers and social media folx (canNOT call them followers, any more than “venti” rolls off the tongue) about Masterminds and what I call “assembling the cast” and why that matters. In life and business.

No one is ever supposed to go any of this alone.

Which runs perpendicular to our fierce values of independence, I know.

Because I firmly and truly and wholly believe that the best of us comes out when we gather with the best. It just stands to reason.

I am clear without a shadow of a doubt that I am wherever I am because I stepped into circle with some strong-hearted brilliant folx...which had me step truer into myself.

The Mastermind I was in with Andrea helped me to step into Coach.

The Mastermind I was in with Rach, Jamie, Kate, Bridget helped me step into Entrepreneur.

The Mastermind I was in with Ronna, Julie, and Amy helped me to step into Writer.

The Mastermind I was in with Tara, Kathleen, Sarah, and Brigitte helped me to step into CEO.

And the Mastermind I’m currently in with Michelle, Molly, Tiffany, and Laura is helping me step into the Tanya that is currently unfolding in ways still too tender to share yet. With their care and precision and championing and fierce love and strategy...and an upcoming weekend in the Poconos because there’s a hot tub calling our name.

So yes, I meet my work with tenacity and I swing out and make hard decisions and second-guess and hedge sometimes but for the most part? Anything you see me doing well in my business is a direct result of some strong and loving hands directing me there. Who are/were able to hold up the sides for me as I navigate the tricky terrains of a life fully lived.

I give the deepest and the greatest thanks to these sisters, teachers, and guides. Every one throughout the years.

My invitation to you: find your people and circle up.

They might not be your forever circle and that will be okay. But their wisdom will live on within you...as will yours live on within them.

We are, always always, better together.


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Calling my Entrepreneurial friends! For two weeks only, Starring Role Academy Community Coach and participant, Helen Tremethick, is opening access to her 3-month copywriting program, Copy Courage and... if you sign up before July 5th, you’ll also get free access to her jumpstart program “F*ck Your Elevator Pitch”. Copy Courage starts this September.

You can enjoy your summer and make sure your website copy is re-branded and ready for launch by the end of the year.

This is Helen’s zone of genius and watching her shine brings me great joy. As does great copy.

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The newest episode of Ready Enough podcast with Andrea Owen on Alcohol Misuse and the Imposter Complex has been quietly received but I’m hearing from listeners that it’s moving through them. And that’s good. That’s the hope. Take what serves you and release the rest. Trust your knowing. I do.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

Something for everyone...but especially y’all in Denver and Seattle

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I was making my kid’s lunch this morning and observed a funny thing.

My mother was excellent at many things.

MANY.

But sandwich-making was not her thing.

Bread, butter, and the protein. That was it.

No cheese, mustard, lettuce, and most certainly NOT avocado. (I know, right? However did I survive such a miserable existence.)

But my kid prefers my mother’s variety of sandwich. Go figure.

So there I was, assembling two slices of rye, a little butter, salami, and a couple of sprigs of basil. Making a mom sandwich, while sipping my coffee black like my Dad drank it.

And I found myself humming Cowboy Junkies ‘A Horse in the Country’.

In particular, this verse:

And all my friends have settled down
become their mothers and their fathers
without a sound
Except for Cathy,
she bought a one-way subway ticket
and left us all behind

I was all set to explore the places I have become my mother and my father without a sound...and also, the places where I have not. There are plenty of line items under each column.

My love of peonies, exquisite linens, Leon Redbone, justice, family, cooking and all of the deliciousness of gathering folks around the table, travel, are places of agreement. For starters.

My business, prioritizing self-care, writing, politics are places of difference. For starters.

As I was running through them in my mind, it hit me. Again.

My folks are both gone. And that is hard.

But I am so glad I had them when I did. Our relationships were imperfect but they weren’t difficult. And that ISN’T necessarily true for all of you. For that, I am sorry.

So I wanted to share the book my friend and colleague Karen CL Anderson wrote called Difficult Mothers, Adult Daughters. May it serve you in the highest.

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My friend, coach, and mentor Desiree Adaway lives and works at the intersections of race, class, and gender. I want you to know her and her work. So much so that she was the first guest in my new podcast, Ready Enough.

But if you happen to be in Seattle or Boulder/Denver, I encourage you to attend her newest workshop: Praxis of Liberation.

You’ll be exploring:

  • The Praxis of Liberation

  • Supremacist vs Liberatory Power

  • Organizational culture/identity

  • Dominant culture in the workplace

  • Having difficult conversations with colleagues: identity, difference, and power

  • Why call out culture is killing us

  • Forgiveness and Reconciliation as core leadership competencies

This workshop is for you if:

Dealing with systemic oppression seems overwhelming but you are committed to action

Want to ground your work in some foundational frameworks and a deeper analysis of race, class, gender, and power

You want to better understand how to have productive conversations across identities

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Thank you thank you thank you for your support of the launch of the Ready Enough podcast! Your emails and shares and recommendations to friends and five star ratings and reviews have been such a blessing and are so deeply appreciated. They help ease the sting of that two-star rating on Canadian iTunes (I mean, c’mon, eh?) If you haven’t had the chance to listen please do...and subscribe so your first to know when a new episode drops...like, this Wednesday!

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I am still plenty stalled on the proposal writing (launching a podcast, designing a new program, and a full client roster will do that to a person) BUT I am heading to France in two weeks to speak and write at a retreat and I have some big big goals for myself there. And I cannot WAIT.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

To be considered: "Resilience is not a DIY Endeavor"?

First of all, thank you, oh thank you to all who took me up on my invitation last week to reach out to your Models of Possibility.

I heard from you about your Models of Grace, and Boundaries, and Generosity, and Balance, and Activism, and Justice, and Poise.

Hearing from you reminds me of one of my top value - and one of your top values I suspect as well - CONNECTION.

And I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how it’s more than a value, isn’t it?

I mean… it’s a NEED.

We’ve heard this before: "Connection is why we're here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering." –Brene Brown

Brene Brown talks about how we are hardwired for connection. Rooted in neuroscience.

It goes like this.

Neuroscience is confirming that our nervous systems want us to connect with other human beings. A good example of this is mirror neurons, which are located throughout the brain and help us read other people's feelings and actions. They may be the neurological underpinnings of empathy — when two people are in conversation they are stimulating each other's mirror neuron system. Not only will this lead to movement in similar muscles of the face (so the expressions are similar) but it also allows each to feel what the other is feeling. This is an automatic, moment to moment resonance that connects us. There have been studies that look at emotions in human beings such as disgust, shame, happiness, where the exact same areas of the brain light up in the listener who is reading the feelings of the person talking. We are, literally, hardwired to connect.

So, yeah. A value… and also a need.

And I’ve also been thinking on resilience.

When I talk about the Unshakeable Confidence, the ever and all-important ACTION sits on top of a willingness to fail, tenacity and resilience. #simplenoteasy

Resilience for me has always been a/the way that we bounce back in the face of adversity. A muscle to be flexed and a practice to be cultivated.

And I think I’m right about that… but only to an extent.

I picked up the (ACTUAL!) newspaper in the garden last Sunday afternoon. A sweet moment of peace and harmony and BBQ smells and sprinkler sounds and ice cream trucks. It was a moment that I did not feel like reading anything overly taxing. You know, Sunday afternoon sweetness only, please.

But of course, I had no choice but to read an Opinion piece on Resilience by Michael Ungar. A few sentences in, I could feel myself blanch.

It was an exacting read of the self-development field. And it was excellent.

An excerpt:

“We have been giving people the wrong message. Resilience is not a DIY endeavour. Self-help fails because the stresses that put our lives in jeopardy in the first place remain in the world around us even after we’ve taken the “cures.” The fact is that people who can find the resources they require for success in their environments are far more likely to succeed than individuals with positive thoughts and the latest power poses.”

Of course.

So much of what happens in the mind-over-matter spaces can bypass privilege, oppression, and can even shift into victim-blaming.

The article goes on to talk about the single biggest predictor of adjustment after a crisis has nothing to do with mindset, but rather the resources and services available. And then speaks into the importance of community.

“Improve the functioning of the family, peer group or work team, and individuals are more likely to show resilience, even if their larger world is seeming to become more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.”

Which I interpret as resilience being less about what’s on the inside (mindset) and more about what’s on the outside (resources and community). Accessed through connection… for which we are hardwired.

I’m still working through this.

Maybe you are too. Read the article when you have time and space and let me know your thoughts. I’d love to hear them.

And if you happen to have access to the author of the piece, Michael Ungar, can you connect me? I think this conversation is RIPE for the upcoming Ready Enough Podcast. (Stay tuned… next week!)

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I can barely keep on top of the brilliant nuggets of collective wisdom that crop up in the Starring Role Academy, but these Spotlight Soundbites are my attempt to scoop them up.

When Michelle Currie, Mentor and truly a Mage said these words in the Academy, oh how we felt their truth and deep resonance.

Because the Imposter Complex loves making the simple very complicated. And it loves to have us discount effort.

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I’m stuck. And that’s just true. Beam me some proposal writing lovin’, will you Loves?


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

Who is your Model of Possibility?

Hiya hi!

Welcome to the new folx around these parts! Maybe you came from my interview on the Imposter Complex with Tiffany Han on her Raise Your Hand Say Yes podcast.

It was a great interview, wasn’t it? Tiffany asks SUCH fabulous questions, really tracks the answers and wants deeply and truly on behalf of her listeners. Plus she’s hilarious, deep, kind and ever working her edge and though she is seasoned, has really only just begun the kind of stratospheric rise that I can see for her clear as day.

She is one to watch, if you aren’t already.

And as I get ready to (re)launch my OWN podcast (two weeks and counting!) I am looking to her as a Model of Possibility. How to be generous, useful, kind, ask tough questions with grace, compassion, finesse, but without being overly tethered to the punitive leash of perfectionism.

There’s no way I will be able to hit Tiffany’s level of excellence right out the gate when we launch. Nor should I even try. But when I think of Tiff as my “Model of Possibility”, well I just feel my whole being relax, even as I lean into the challenges that lie ahead.

“Model of Possibility” is a term my pal Lauren Bacon turned me onto when we were doing deep analysis of comparison some time ago.

She read Laverne Cox say: “I would never be so arrogant to think that someone should model their lives after me but the idea of possibility. The idea that I get to live my dreams out in public hopefully will show other folks that that is possible. And so I prefer the term possibility model to role model.”

This really dials down the stickiness of comparison, doesn’t it? When we think about people we admire, and consider them through the lens of "possibility models" (rather than role models, heroes, gurus, etc.), it really shifts things, doesn’t it?

So...who’s YOUR Model of Possibility?

And why?

Tell me.

But then, and this is SUPER important, tell THEM. I guarantee they need to hear it at that precise moment. Because, just like you, they question their own magnificence. No one gets a pass on that.

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One of the many things you don’t know about my mother was that she was an avid, and I mean, AVID reader of obituaries. I’m fascinated by fascinating people living well. And how they are recognized...and not.

So it’s not surprising that on my mind is this very cool project by NYT obit editor Amy Padnani called “Overlooked Obituaries”, a series telling the stories of remarkable women and folx of colour who never received a New York Times obit. And this talk...excellent. Book and TV series coming soon.

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If you haven’t had a chance to check out my interview with Tiffany Han, do check it out here. Because in Tiffany’s words, “[Imposter Complex] IS A REAL THING THAT WE GRAPPLE WITH AND THAT BECOMES ESPECIALLY BIG AND POWERFUL WHEN WE'RE RIGHT ON THE EDGE OF SOMETHING DEEPLY MEANINGFUL AND IMPORTANT. (Yes. I'm screaming because oh my goodness, doesn't this just explain so much?!)” She’s fun, that one.


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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

Should I just freaking do the work?

I get emails like this all the time.

Most days, in fact.

Hey TG,

I'm in a challenge at the gym and we are supposed to be sharing images of our meals in the facebook group. And I've only posted once, because I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME.

Over and over I've joined online communities, FB groups, masterminds, etc. And I don't show up. I'm there, reading, perusing, commenting. But I can't make posts myself.

And I think it's because I don't want to take up space. I don't know what it is around that. Fear of not being liked or accepted? Maybe a little. Fear of making a typo and looking like an idiot, yeah a little. Not wanting to be vulnerable ever... Is this all the impostor complex? Even when it's about posting pictures of my meals?

Any insights here? Should I just freaking do the work?

You know how I responded, right?

OF COURSE YOU SHOULD JUST DO THE FREAKING WORK!

Nah. You know didn’t. Not my style.

What I did respond was this.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.

And yes, it's the Impostor Complex.

Not wanting to get it wrong, or maybe it's not about getting it wrong, but rather, not getting it "right".

And yes. It's the not wanting to take up space. Because, and here's me swinging out on a limb...you think you "already have it too good."

Your piece of the joy pie is too good. Too much. The family, the gorgeousness, the heart, the courage. You're the everything.

And on some level, that has been hard. You have maybe experienced the Tall Poppy Syndrome. People may have projected onto you, or told you how "easy" it is for you because (fill in the blanks) so you stay quiet.

You diminish.

Know what?

You deserve a bigger piece of the pie. The whole damned pie.

Let them see your plate.

Be true, be you.

It is, you are, EVERYTHING.

BELIEVE ME.

Yes?”

If you tend to diminish, I wrote this for you. Pie ‘n all.

And if you tend to be a people-pleaser, I wrote this for you. (And me.)

If you compare, have leaky boundaries, procrastinate or are a perfectionist, hold tight. Your articles are coming up in the next couple of weeks.

I believe in us. And the work we’re here to do.

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And speaking of diminishment, I contributed to this article about confidence and body language. Once again, I challenged the notion of “fake it ‘til you make it” as an enduring strategy. Because it isn’t. Know what is? Rooting in and embodying what is real and authentic about your talents, skills and excellence. You don’t need to fake a THING. I’m right about this.

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My beloved friend and cherished teacher, Desiree Adaway, will be hosting the Whiteness at Work Webinar on Thursday, May 23rd 2pm ET.

I’ll be joining this free call as we look at how white supremacy culture manifest in our work places.

We’ll be diving into (in her words):

  • Organizational characteristics that mimic and reinforce white supremacy culture and how those impact everything from hiring, to flex work policies to culture at-large.

  • How resistance to new ways of thinking and equity and inclusion work further underpin and perpetuate toxic norms.

  • How to begin naming these characteristics and norms and ways to mitigate them.

I don’t work in an organization...but this is some pretty vital information for all of us who take our whiteness with us wherever we go. And for me, I want to start as I mean to go and BUILD my business with integrity into the organization I’ve been dreaming of.

Join me. 

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Last week, I did a photo shoot in my home with two of my dearest friends. Victoria Dixon has been a beloved of mine since our kids were toddlers. She also makes me look pretty spectacular as she is a leading makeup artist here in Canada. Aggie Armstrong is a brilliant photographer, artist and is my Creative Director. So it was a spectacular time. With more days like that to come. But one of the millions of things I loved about this day, truly one of my favourites, was knowing that my kid was upstairs snoozing while sick, and listening to us sing and hoot and laugh and even cry a little. She was reminded, again, what it means to be like in a relationship with other powerful women, what it means to lift each other up, what it means to have a hell of a lot of fun doing work you love, and what it looks like to not be even a little bit “ladylike”. And that to me is something worth celebrating.



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.

Read More
Tanya Geisler Tanya Geisler

How will YOU not postpone joy today?

Hey HEY friends -

There are a host of new folx on my list this month so I wanted to welcome y’all in.

WELCOME! I’m so glad you’re here!

And reconnect with those of you who have been around for a while and maybe can’t recall why.

THANKS FOR BEING HERE!

I write about a two things specifically.

#1 I mostly write about the Impostor Complex.

I endeavour to share with you what I know and have been learning about the Impostor Complex over the past 12 years. Well, the Impostor Complex, Unshakeable Confidence, and Stepping into your Starring Roles, that is. And friends? There are days when I feel like I’ve only just BEGUN.

Most recently, I wrote a post about People-Pleasing and the Impostor Complex.

Before that, I wrote about how I invite nuance when considering the Impostor Complex and the coping mechanisms that can exacerbate the experience.

And right before that, I wrote articles on how the Impostor Complex tries to shut us down by having us stay out of actiondoubt our capacity, and have us feel alone and isolated.

#2 I also write about life.

I confused the HELL out of many of you new readers who came for the Impostor Complex teachings when I wrote a love letter to my fifteen-year-old for her birthday and started with “Dear L” (especially the Lauries, Laceys, Lindas, Lydia, Lavettas in the room!) But that’s what I do (not the confusing you, mind...but rather the writing). I write about life. My life. And maybe your life too.

And MY life includes my body of work which IS the Impostor Complex.

Also?

The grief. The joys. The heartaches. The disappointments. The undulations. The shame. The ice cream. The injustices. The shattering sorrow of light. The grace. The liminal spaces. The legacies. The arcs. The brilliant revelations of shadows.

I write to iron out the edges of my thinking, such that it may be of service to us both.

Does my Impostor Complex LIKE that I write about my life? Oh hellllllll no. But, Honey? It doesn’t even like it when I write about the IMPOSTOR COMPLEX.

Because for me to be able to live my life IN my Starring Role, with Unshakeable Confidence, I am required to embrace the #bothand (and then some) of who I am.

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My Mama had a mantra, you know. It was “Don’t Postpone Joy”. I’ve written about her hereherehere, and here...with my grandmother too.

Since she died, I have prioritized understanding joy. And then, activating from it.

And in truth, what gives me joy is writing what I am compelled to write. Teaching what I am compelled to teach. Honouring the call that has been made of me.

Today’s my Mama’s birthday. So in her honour, let me know how YOU won’t postpone joy today?


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.

Read More