When you find yourself thinking that everyone has it figured out except for you, that people are going to find out that you are not qualified, or that you are incapable of repeating results, there are a few things we can glean from this information - and it is not that you are unqualified.
This is the voice of the imposter complex (commonly referred to as imposter syndrome), and in this episode, Tanya Geisler fills us in on:
Resources from this episode
Connect with Tanya Geisler: www.tanyageisler.com
Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome
When you find yourself thinking that everyone has it figured out except for you, that people are going to find out that you are not qualified, or that you are incapable of repeating results, there are a few things we can glean from this information - and it is not that you are unqualified.
This is the voice of the imposter complex (commonly referred to as imposter syndrome), and in this episode, Tanya Geisler fills us in on:
Resources from this episode
Connect with Tanya Geisler: www.tanyageisler.com
Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome
The imposter complex wants to keep you out of action, it wants to have you doubt your capacity and it wants to keep you alone and isolated.
Brooke Monaghan:Welcome to another episode of Make your Business Work For you. This is our first episode with one of our expert contributors where it's not really a Q&A, it's more of a conversation about their area of expertise. We have so far, at the time that I'm recording this, about 30 expert contributors, all of whom have agreed to be available for you to ask them questions and they will come on and do a Q&A episode, many of whom are going to be teaching workshops in the fruition growth network community, and today's episode is about imposter complex, or you may know it as imposter syndrome. Tanya Geisler is somebody who has massively impacted the way that I approach everything in the work that she does. I heard her speak for the first time on a podcast before I even started working for myself and truly it's something that has just informed the way that I move forward all the time, because, spoiler, I do suffer from imposter complex quite often, as do all of us who are conscientious and value integrity and care about what we do, as you're going to learn in this episode.
Brooke Monaghan:If you want to send in questions for any of our expert contributors, go to joinfrewishncom. Make sure that you're following us on Instagram at Joinfrewishn If you haven't already. Make sure that you are subscribed to the show and that you leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts. That makes a really big difference for us. We are intentionally growing the listenership of this show because, hopefully, we will have sponsors in the future which will allow us to expand some of the programming. That, honestly, is some of the most important programming that I would like to bring to fruition, and it depends on some outside funding, so help us out.
Brooke Monaghan:You can also join us in fruition growth network in the community starting in October and spoiler things are going to be even more accessible than they normally would be in the month of October, so that's the month for you to check things out. We're going to be doing live events, guest workshops, co-workings, and we'd love to see you there. So get on our email list If you're not already joinfrewishncom, and let's get into this episode with Tonya Geisler. Oh well, I can hear you when I unplug my microphone. So the problem is oh, you know, what the problem is is that my headphones are not plugged into my microphone.
Tanya Geisler:Oh, honey, honey.
Brooke Monaghan:We're off to a strong start. Okay, hi, how are you, I'm good. I mean, I'm not sure you can kind of probably not maybe the outline of a kitten, maybe basking some sun.
Tanya Geisler:She's just, she's just purring, it's just just they're so happy, the other ones. So the my only caveat is that I don't know, like I don't know, what's going to happen. We might have to edit some stuff out. Oh, they wake up and just be like wild, because kittens man.
Brooke Monaghan:That's fine, but also like, the stuff that you would think you have to edit out is oftentimes the most entertaining stuff, true, you know I love my dog.
Brooke Monaghan:Just be in the podcast sometimes, thank you. I've been changing my hair color maybe every four weeks for the past like six months and this one is staying. This, this orange, is doing it for me and it's also on brand with the new branding, so I'm just like going with it. The first thing that I wanted to say to you was it is so funny how he ended up talking because for this because I had been for a month I had a list of people who is like I'm going to reach out to these people and ask them to be contributors for this new platform that I'm working on, and I was like it's going to be great and people are going to there's so much in the story as I'm saying and I'm like, oh man, there's like so much in the story, but it's going to be great because I'm going to be the person who gets to show up in people's inbox and be like hey, do you want to come on a podcast? Do you want me to like feature your work on this thing? And, like you know at least, I spend a whole bunch of time looking for opportunities like that. So I was like I'll be the person who gets to show up in people's inbox and ask them, you know, and offer this, until the time came to actually do it. And I was like I don't want to bother anybody. I'm asking people to do work for me. I don't want to. I can't reach out to these people. I can't just like ask that like they're going to be like who do you think that you are Like, no, I don't want anything to do. What? No, this is just like too much.
Brooke Monaghan:And you were on that list, by the way, obviously, because every single time that anyone says the words imposter syndrome is what they usually say. I'm like, actually, I use the term imposter complex Because Tony Geisler says you need to go to her website and you need to look at, like her articles that she has there. It's like you know and you're just like my go to person that I always bring up when I talk about that. So why would I not ask you to be one of the first contributors? But did I? No, I didn't.
Brooke Monaghan:And then I was on Facebook, which I almost never go on an actual lady. The only reason I'm on there is because there's one Facebook group I'm a part of and it has just moved off of Facebook so I get to delete that account again. But luckily I didn't, because I went on Facebook and I saw you say do you have a podcast that you want me to be on? And then you're talking about how, like one of the central parts of your work is saying like your people want to help.
Brooke Monaghan:And I was like, oh my gosh, and it was on the day that I was like reach out to these contributors and it just was right there so I couldn't. I mean at that point I didn't know and it was like my, it was like my doorway, it was my window of opportunity to say Tony Geisler is somebody who I have looked up to for so long and heard you speaking, even before I left my full time job and even started doing the work that I do. I don't know. I get to like just hang out with you and talk to you and like have you on my podcast and ask you whatever I want. It's just wild to me.
Tanya Geisler:So bless, bless, bless, bless. And I'm so honored that you were a big if you said, can we do this? And I'm also, you know, I am going to pat myself in the back, I'm going to go ahead and just just that was so smart of me to do so smart. You know, sitting inside of this, I have had I don't know how many conversations in the last couple of weeks in the pits of doing a bunch of crap I didn't want to be doing, and I have a lot of really smart people around saying, well, what do you want to be doing? I want to be having great conversations, I want to be on more podcasts, I want you know. And then, and then it was like what are you doing about that TG? Oh, maybe I should probably ask, and I did, and my calendar has been filled with these incredible conversations and I'm just, of course, so I am absolutely celebrating that following that, and I'm just delighted and honored. It was so, it was so good. Just y'all remember to ask, just remember to ask.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, and so many people I know I'm not the only one who was waiting for Tonya to start to be like hey, you have a podcast. I want to be on. Like, of course, your calendar is filling up great conversations because everyone's like, yes, I do Come and talk to me. Yeah, and one of the reasons why I, you know, you were such an obvious person for me to want to have on the show which you were on my other podcast years ago at this point, and it was so fun and so informative and I've sent people back to that episode a bunch of times. But I also, you know, I wanted to have you back again because not everybody is going to go back and listen to that episode. Not everybody is going to go and listen to all of the conversations that you have done before.
Brooke Monaghan:And I want to like push this in front of people one more time because it's so. I was telling you like it's so, it's. It's something that I come back to all the time as somebody who is like I mean all of us, I think. But every single time that I have a new idea, there's the imposter, complex element of it and there's some things that you teach that to me. I'm just like, yeah, this is. I just know this now.
Brooke Monaghan:And so, even if I don't believe it and even if I am in one of those days where I'm like really talking shit to myself, I can be like, okay, but here's what we know is true about imposter complex and I can just like kind of rest on that for a moment and I'd love to get into some of those things with you first, because people really really really need to hear it. So I think the place to start is like I'd love for you to walk us through, or you don't have to walk us through, but we can start the conversation with. If someone is coming up against imposter complex, really hard and it's really loud, like what are some of the things that we can maybe guess might be going on for that person, or might be true for that person, that are causing us to come up?
Tanya Geisler:I had this problem over the weekend when somebody was like so I've been following your work, but exactly what is imposter complex? And I was like God, how long is this piece of string? I don't know what to say. So the first thing I will say is when you said, what do we know about this person who's coming up against the imposter complex? What we know is that this person is human. Know that this person has beautiful values of excellence and integrity and proficiency. That's what we already know about this person. We also know that they are on the precipice of doing something that is meaningful and that matters. So that's what we already know.
Tanya Geisler:If you're experiencing this, you are struck, you are at an edge and you want to do things really beautifully well, because this thing matters to you. So you're also a human. So those are the first things that we absolutely understand. To be true, the imposter complex wants to keep you out of action. It wants to have you doubt your capacity and it wants to keep you alone and isolated. Sometimes all three are the four and sometimes it will pick one or the other. So for that person, that's really where we begin is well, what's actually going on here? Is it trying to keep you out of action by telling you you don't know what you're doing.
Tanya Geisler:You actually named it. You named it in a couple of different times, in a couple of different ways, when you were creating this new, extraordinarily important to you platform. You are already in the place of who am I to and what will they think? You didn't actually say that, but that's what I heard. Those are hallmark characteristics or hallmark questions that the imposter complex is going to show up with. So that's what we know about the person right out of the gate that this matters. You know, I say this all the time. I don't experience the imposter complex in my yoga practice. I don't experience it in my cooking. Those are things that I enjoy, but they don't. They're not deeply ensconced in my sense of identity or my sense of purpose and place on this earth. But holy do. It's like a show of my parenting and my speaking and my teaching and my writing. That's where it's going to show up.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, and those are things that I am so grateful for Tiffany Hahn, for being the person who introduced me to your work, and I think that and so many other people right. I mean it's just like it was so pivotal for me to start to kind of discover people like you, like Tiffany, like Lena West, like people who I've met kind of through, just like I landed on a podcast one day. These conversations came up and I was just like, oh my gosh, like I've never heard anyone put it this way and it just really changed the trajectory of my life, like it really really did. I mean, I was my memory of listening to you for the first time. Now I'm going down like a story hole, but there's something that I actually wanted to say about that.
Brooke Monaghan:It was walking to my nonprofit job in Buffalo, because I lived in Buffalo at the time with my big like Sorrel boots on and like going through, like the sludge down the stairs to go and walk to the office and hearing you I think it was an interview that you did on Tiffany's podcast for the first time. Like I still remember it because, despite the fact that and I am married to an academic and so people in academia talk about imposter syndrome all the time that they have imposter syndrome. Despite the fact that I have heard a million conversations about imposter syndrome, I had never one time heard someone say, hey, if you're experiencing this, it probably means that this really matters to you and you really want to do a good job and you're really conscientious and like care about the people who are. You know who you're doing this for and all actually like this is a totally normal thing.
Tanya Geisler:Yeah, 100%, 100% 100%, and we want to make ourselves so wrong, for we want to make ourselves so wrong. I love what you were saying. I love that visual. By the way, I love the Sorrel boots Boy. Do I know that? Do I? I'm in Toronto, so you know, I know the sludge, you know. I know what that February 27th day is like. And, by the way, I give thanks for Tiffany Hawn every single day myself. In fact, she was just texting me about something else today. What I think is really valuable for people to know about me and my work is that I'm not here to eradicate imposter complex, right, can't be done, can't be done. But what I want people to have is that faster recovery or the way you named it. You know. I'd like just coming back to remembering what I know. So I want that to be ingrained in people's understanding about what's going on for them. And you've mentioned imposter syndrome a couple of times. Is it fruitful to share?
Brooke Monaghan:with folks why I was going there next. So go there what's?
Tanya Geisler:the OR. Yeah, so imposter syndrome is how this experience is largely known, mostly because of a book written by Valerie Young a couple of decades back where she named it as imposter syndrome. The clinical psychologists who identified this experience named it as imposter phenomenon, and I think that that's a really important distinction for me, because syndrome speaks into it being a clinical diagnosis. It suggests that there's a clinical diagnosis to this. That's typically what a syndrome will mean, and so for folks who have, who have diagnoses that are syndromes, you'll understand why that matters. And words definitely matter to me, so I don't want to co-op medical terms. Also, it really pathologizes what is otherwise a really typical kind of life experience that we all come up against. So that's really important.
Tanya Geisler:Now I say this all the time. It's getting a little bit tired, but it does. It still remains the truth. My SEO people are so pissed at me that I continue to use imposter complex because that's not what people are googling, but still, you know, again, words really really do matter to me and also, as my coach and friend, desiree always reminds me, this stuff's complex right. So the idea whether Jung would agree with me or not if it's actually complex, I really like that reminder. It's very, very layered, it's very nuanced, and we all experience this in extremely different ways.
Tanya Geisler:I think this is the other challenge that we can have here is, when we talk about imposter, complex or syndrome, we do like to look at it as a sort of a one size fits all experience. And it ain't that. It's very, very complex and you know, I talk about it from the lens of my lived experience. The white, neurotypical, able-bodied woman of middle class means living in North America. That is not everybody else's truth, that is not everybody else's experience, so we're going to experience it differently.
Brooke Monaghan:Part of my work is to flatten it and say, okay, we are coming at this from different places, we are showing up with different coping mechanisms because of how we've been conditioned, because of how we've been socialized, because of how we've been systemically excluded, so we're going to have a different experience with this, and so that naming of complex invites a little more care, I think, as we have this conversation, yeah, I agree, and one of the things that I really appreciate about the intentionality behind the term that you use there is that, at least prior to hearing you speak on imposter complex, I was always hearing people talk about it in terms of this is a problem that I have and it's a me thing and I need to figure out how to deal with this and what I learned through your work because, also, what I will say is that I know that you're not doing the podcast anymore, but you did have a podcast ready enough, which is still there everybody and the conversations are still awesome and what I really really loved about and love about that podcast is that you were sort of going at things from the angle of, like, okay, there's imposter complex, but there's also all of these other systemic things or all these other external things that feed into this as well.
Brooke Monaghan:Like, let's have a conversation about this.
Brooke Monaghan:You weren't trying to do the thing that so often happens on the internet, where we want to like, way, simplify and make everything about that thing, because then that leads people to thinking that you're the ultimate source on all of the things, which is like what we're taught to do when actually, like, there's so much complexity to this and I really appreciate that and I really appreciate the conversations around, like or at least what I took from some of the conversations that you had around what would it mean if you were really to just like get rid of this thing within you, because that would mean that you actually wouldn't have that really strong value of integrity or excellence?
Brooke Monaghan:Like that would mean that actually you would be going about things with maybe a little bit less care or a little bit less like thoughtfulness and right and so like this is the thing that when you know what it is and I do think it's helpful to name things, to know what they are you can work with it. But if you don't know what it is and you think that it's your fault and you're trying to get rid of it, you're actually moving in the wrong direction.
Tanya Geisler:Exactly, exactly exactly. I write a quote in one of my clients, miro Bortz. They'll send me their mind maps of like all the stuff. There's some quotes like if that, and I can't remember who the quotes were. So I'm just gonna do that thing where I'm let me know who said this quote. But it's basically like if a captain's job is to preserve the ship, it'll never leave the harbor, right, that's not the point. We're trying to swing out. We're trying to do things. We're trying to. We got like things to. We've got systems to heal and decisions to make and things to disrupt. We can't just sort of stay in this like like I can't do this thing.
Tanya Geisler:Lena West, I loved this so much. She talks about you know, specifically my work, but really I guess it's this work when we start to name and understand what's actually going on. She said this work is like a Formula One racing suit so, which is such an interesting metaphor for me, like as a complete non-racer. But I'm like I get it, I get it. So it's not going to. You know, you're still gonna have to hug the turns and you're still gonna have to. Presumably that's how racing works. You know, it might not even protect you from some of the skids that you're gonna have, but it's gonna protect you. Like once you know that you have this suit that is made so perfectly designed for you, you are going to be okay when you skid out or when you do whatever it is that you do in Formula One racing.
Tanya Geisler:It's a great metaphor that I still don't really understand, but I get the suit analogy right so like it's not gonna stop you from, like it's gonna protect, as you're doing, these big world changing, disrupting things, and that's what it's about.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, yeah. And the discomfort of doing that, of like stepping out and being like I'm gonna take a risk and, you know, do my best in this area, that really matters to me Like that's gonna be uncomfortable.
Tanya Geisler:It's gonna be uncomfortable, there might be some skids, but like so, how do you gear up? How do you make sure that you are as protected as you can possibly be? Yeah, yeah.
Brooke Monaghan:I am feeling like I need to reel myself in a bit and come back to some of the basic things that to me, might seem very obvious. I think that, but I think it might be helpful to really spell out for people who are listening. Like you were saying, like you know, the imposter complex wants to keep you doubting your capacity, alone and isolated and out of action. Yes, and so when you say that, like, what comes up for me is just like this is like kind of a mechanism of your, this is like a mechanism that you are in some capacity like using to like stay safe, yeah, right, yeah.
Tanya Geisler:So why make ourselves wrong for that? The other thing too yes, we're gonna go back to that because I probably wanna talk about some strategies. We probably wanna talk about the coping mechanisms, because those are the usually the things that are bringing people to me, to my work and this conversation. Let's do it. But I wanna say that you know, you mentioned something about how we have this experience and we wanna make ourselves wrong for it. We think there's something wrong with us that we're gonna be fixed.
Tanya Geisler:You will also notice in the ethers of conversation in an Oran imposter complex, there's a brilliant article written by the Harvard Business Review and you know what? I'm gonna make sure that we have a link to that. It's a really brilliant article written by two women of color talking about stop stop telling women that they experienced imposter syndrome, and I could not agree more in so many different realms, because typically this is used as a there is something wrong with you, you don't have enough confidence, you aren't speaking up enough, largely in a corporate environment, but really what's happening is folks feel like they don't have the institutional ground cover to protect them when they actually do raise their hand, when they do swing out. It has been used as a way of gaslighting people, so I think, again the complexity is so it becomes a you problem, not a hey.
Tanya Geisler:How are we actually supporting folks, how are we actually making sure that their voices are heard, that there is a culture of belonging here, and so that can be another place that we get that we push up against in this conversation.
Tanya Geisler:So, further to gaslighting the way we're gonna. We don't wanna feel like the imposter, right? We don't wanna feel like that. It's a terrible feeling. We feel like everybody's in on some kind of secret and we're just on the outside and the imposter comics is absolutely obsessed with how we are belonging or not belonging. So it's the reason we fear success as much as we fear failure. On both ends of the spectrum we are othered from the sort of the core group, right. So we don't wanna feel like that. So that means that we kind of we reign it in a little bit.
Tanya Geisler:So we're gonna hide out in specific behaviors that again have been conditioned or are instruments of safety for those who have been systemically excluded or marginalized. So this means that we're gonna go to perfectionism, which we think our perfectionism is gonna save us. We're gonna procrastination to avoid feeling like the imposter right, like if I don't have to do the thing, nobody's gonna find out I don't belong here. We'll go to a diminishment where I condemn my light and not to be on anybody's radar, where we go to comparison to see how we're stacking up. We're gonna use our people pleasing and we're gonna have leaky boundaries. Oh, again, all the time à la foie. We've never got out of bed if that were the case. But we all have our typical kind of go-to ways of trying to avoid feeling like the imposter. Add in one more layer of complexity here, and when we go to these behaviors to avoid feeling like the imposter, we actually feel more like the imposter. So here's how that works.
Tanya Geisler:Yeah, let's break it down for us, because I've had this experience before and I can't wait.
Tanya Geisler:Yeah, so as a people pleaser. So I wanna make sure that everybody likes me. I wanna make sure that everybody likes me and then I'm gonna know that I belong. Then I know that I fit in. I know that I'm supposed to be here. Nobody made a mistake, I belong. But if I'm using my charm and my likability, like I've been taught, when I get offered another opportunity I'll think well, they're just being nice, they just like me. I'm not being invited because I'm deeply skilled, talented and brilliant at what I do. They just like me. So that has me feeling more like the imposter. So it's this double edged Arrow, this double arrow yes, that's what I want to say. It's double arrow, right, it gets us coming and going.
Tanya Geisler:Our perfectionism, right? We think that we, you know, we want to make sure that our work is above reproach, right? So we are going to work so hard and so diligently to make sure that absolutely every eyes dotted, every T is crossed. We are going to work so bloody hard and then we look up and realize, oh, wait a minute, nobody else has to work as hard as me. Clearly, I don't belong. It's just coming and going and trust what I tell you.
Tanya Geisler:This is the same for every, every last aspect. In comparison, we go to comparison, but in doing so doing, we actually feel more like the imposter. We go to a procrastination, we feel more like the imposter, each and every one of these behavioral traits. So it feels relentless and it feels futile. Right, our coping mechanism is actually exacerbating the challenge. So this is another place we are going to make ourselves so wrong and we're going to go to, you know, we're going to pick up the book on how to stop procrastinating and just be more confident, dammit, and stop being such a people, pleaser. Snap, slap, slap, slap, slap. But the reality is there's something, there's deep wisdom here, there's something incredibly valuable that sits here, and the self development space is a $42 billion industry, which is a ton of money invested in making people, making sure that people feel like shit about themselves.
Tanya Geisler:So what I much prefer for people do is look at the sort of conditions that foster my people pleasing. Yes, it was how I was conditioned, it was how I was raised, it's how I was praised. All of that is true and it also underscores my exquisite value of inclusivity. I am 0% interested in not amplifying that. I am 0% interested in that. I'm not interested in the way that when I over identify with my people pleasing, it keeps me out of action, doubting in my capacity, and alone and isolated.
Tanya Geisler:That's when it becomes tricky. So if you're somebody who goes to people pleasing as a kind of a natural set point, a way to celebrate your value of inclusivity, if you have leaky boundaries, a way to celebrate the fact that you are deeply generous, that, if you have, you know, if you're somebody who tends to compare, you've got a gorgeous value of connection that is not to be trifled with. If you diminish, it probably has a lot to do with your humility. If you are a procrastinator, then this is everything to do with your value of discernment and that perfectionism has everything to do with your value of excellence, and I talk about leadership a lot, and when I think about those that set of values discernment, connection, excellence, generosity, inclusivity right Like that's the world I want to live in.
Tanya Geisler:So, why are we making ourselves wrong for these aspect of ourselves when we really need to amplify them? Yeah, yeah.
Brooke Monaghan:It's brilliant and what I what I immediately go to as I hear you kind of lay all that out is if we, the people who have, who tends to go to those people who have a lot of connections that's a lot of them, they tend to go there because we have those values are not the ones who endure the discomfort of kind of swaying out and creating a change and disrupting some things and potentially or definitely screwing up and then being like all right, but that doesn't you know, like that's a human thing, then who does? It's the people who don't have those values or who they're right, like their interest in feeling important or making things work in a way that works for them and people like them. Those are their values that are steering the ship, and it's like there's to me, there's like no choice but to not allow those to be the only people who are, you know, at the forefront of things.
Tanya Geisler:That's right, and you mentioned a little bit before you were talking about, you know, if we eradicate the imposter complex. And what does that look like? Well, what it looks like is a lot of people walked around with the Dunning Kruger effect, which is like a plate opposite, which is where you have confidence, but very, very few data points of your excellence and your ability right the imposter complexes. That's the inverse. So not at all interested in that, not at all interested.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, one bit.
Brooke Monaghan:Another piece of this too that keeps coming up as you're talking and I think is really related to this and anybody who's listened to any of my other pieces of content that I've done is probably so sick of hearing me talk about it is Carol Dweck's work on growth, mindset and how actually, like you get better at things by making mistakes and struggling through, like, putting in effort.
Brooke Monaghan:You don't know what you're doing. At first, you have all of this confidence. Then you start putting in the effort, you start learning what you didn't know before and it feels like you have no idea what you're doing, because you're actually becoming more aware of what you didn't know before, and that's what learning is. Like you like mess things up and you realize you have no idea how to do a thing, and then that points you toward what you need to learn, how to do, and you misstep through it and right and it's. It feels like imposter, complex, like one of the one of the lies of it is that, like you should somehow just come out of the gate, like with your fully capable of, like just doing your life's work, like creating this master piece right now, which is like obviously not the way that it's ever going to work like there's no space. It never works that way, yeah.
Tanya Geisler:Yeah, and, by the way, yeah because our listeners heard it, so I'm just going to underscore and pull it back. Nobody's sick of hearing you talk about Carol Dweck's work. Oh, thank you, because, because we love hearing it through the lens of your perspective and your big beautiful brain, we can all read her work. Might some of us might, but we love hearing it through your perspective, thank you.
Brooke Monaghan:Thank you for saying that. You know, this weekend I was talking to a very close friend of mine and they said I don't even remember how it came up, but they were saying something about some of the things that I've been working on and how they've, oh they really loved how close we've been at this phase of both of our lives, because it's allowed each of us to kind of witness the other one do really big shit. And I was like, yeah, I feel like I have so much to say right now about how risky it is to just create something, but I'm like so in the experience, that I'm just not really like even talking about that with people, because I'm just like I'm trying to just create the thing. I'm just like I don't have time to talk about it right now, I just need to like do it. And they were like you need to be writing about this. And I was like, oh, I write about it all the time. I just never post it because after I write it, I'm just like everyone already knows that. And they were like, yeah, no, that's not true, not everyone already knows that, and even if some people do know it, like they need to hear you say it.
Brooke Monaghan:Well, we had that conversation, I think, on like Thursday. On Saturday I wrote this whole big thing. Ask me where it is. It's in my notes app. Why? Because when I got to the end of it I was like Brené Brown already wrote this whatever, no one needs to hear this. Now you're saying this and I'm like it's already there. Literally all I would need to do is just copy it and paste it somewhere Like I don't know, even send it to a few of my friends, like it doesn't even need to be content, necessarily, right, but just saying it and sharing it with people. Yeah, there's just always that voice. That's like no one really needs to hear that from you.
Brooke Monaghan:You know, that's just so interesting.
Tanya Geisler:That's line number four, the imposter complex, of which there are 12,. You have nothing useful, original or valuable to say, which is when, when we believe this line, we say nothing, we pass up opportunities for collaboration, we pass up opportunities to say are brilliant, to share our brilliant shit with the world. This is probably no, can't pick a favorite, can't pick a favorite. There are 12 fantastic lines. All are deeply compelling, but there is absolutely nothing new under the sun.
Tanya Geisler:There really isn't there, like there, there, literally, is nothing new under the sun. Yeah, it isn't, yeah, but we have not heard, through the lens of your lived experience, from with your brilliant flavors, we're all. We all will always remember you walking in your sorrels, like those are the ways that we are, that we have the wisdom imprinted through your experience. I'm going to tell you something straight up like this that, to me, is the Oprah effect, for me, 100% the Oprah effect.
Tanya Geisler:When you hear back in the day when, when she was interviewing folks it wasn't, you know, I wasn't super interested with Deepak show project is saying come for me I don't care, but I was really interested to hear what he had to say through the hopper of her experience, the hopper of wisdom and how she saw the world, because I and I think that that was one, one of the things as the most compelling she would take these concepts and would she be able to to bring them down in a way that really just made sense. The other thing I want to say is I'm celebrating you in that friendship. I'm celebrating you and that person that you have in your life, because such a huge part of this work for me you know you named the three things that it will name positive complex, wants to keep you out of action, doubting your capacity and loan, and isolated. The strategies are really specific and, of course for if I want to keep you alone and isolated, your job is to assemble your cast right.
Tanya Geisler:Really make sure you're surrounded by some really, really good folks. I mean folks who are just constantly in agreement with you, but that can provide you conscious critique, and that is a huge piece I think so many of us tend to struggle with. So when there is something useful in relationships, I really want to put a spotlight on that so you can see that's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, it's, it's true, and honestly, I mean, it's been so game changing for me to realize, like the people who I really want to be spending time with, to the point that it's a huge part of the reason why I've shift. I've kind of pivoted in my own business, because one of the things that I really want to do, one of the things that we're going to start doing in fruition, is having free, open to anybody calls with the intention of like if you need to find, like accountability partners, mastermind buddies, like people you want to collaborate or something with, or something like come in and helping people connect with those people, because you do not need to always. Sometimes you do need to pay to be in a space, to be surrounded by the people that you want to be surrounded by, but sometimes it's a matter of being like you know what. I just need to set a time aside to be with these people regularly and make it a point to not shy away from talking about the things that I'm doing.
Brooke Monaghan:Like, make it a like a you know a mastermind, so to speak, where you're making it a point where everyone's talking about the things that they're working on and sharing that with each other, like, and I think that we've gotten to a point now where it's see, it feels like there's a program for everything and you always need to join a thing in order to be working on something and that can be really helpful for people. But also, if you don't have the resources to do that, or if you already have people in your orbit who you know would be really mutually beneficial for the two of you to do that yourselves, like, do it yourselves. It's been huge for me, so and I do pay to be in space to help bring something different.
Tanya Geisler:Absolutely. I do think that sometimes folks struggle to find those people and so into something that is a bit more curated and organized. It's like I'll be able to step in and I'll know that my people are going to be here. There's so much wounding in and around finding your people. We've all had experiences where we've not been met, where we felt let down. Where we've not been, you know, folks won't rise up to meet us All of there's so much pain that sits inside here. So again, I want to celebrate that you have some of those folks.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I have a couple of questions for you about you and your experience, rather than about imposter complex, and the first one is one that I've been so curious about, which is you are a. It seems that you're doing lots of speaking engagements and you are like an excellent speaker and people love having you speak at their events, and I'm curious about how you started with the speaking and if that was like something that you I think it's something that you always wanted to do, because I think that you have this like presence of being on a stage that just seems like there's no possible way that it was like, you know, just something that happened, but I would love to hear a little bit about that.
Tanya Geisler:I have always loved the stage, love, love, love the stage, but not the theater, not the theater necessarily, but I've always loved the the. Yeah, if you've ever worked with a coach, you know that they're going to do a peak experience moment. And my peak experience moment was what was when happened when I was 17, writing for student council and I did the whole thing in full on Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure vibe. Oh yeah, it was something. It was something. But really, when I think about that peak experience, what that brought me was an understanding of joy. I really felt so much joy. I felt I felt connecting, I felt generous with my humor, I felt grateful for the opportunity. So all of this was just this really beautiful combination. So I've always wanted to come back there and so having impact in a pretty large way was so you know that was a very indelible moment. And you know I did do a little bit of theater, most like like Molière plays and university kind of thing, and I loved, I just loved all of it. I loved the impact, I love how people felt and responded.
Tanya Geisler:And my first corporate I would say I was an advertising and by far my favorite part was the pitches. I loved being able to hold something, so it wasn't just the entertainment, it was also. Can I change people's minds? Can we look at this differently? Can we all of us see something a little bit differently? So what I looked at, what I really wanted to do and again, I, too, have cultivated good relationships, and it's been super important all along for me to make sure that I'm surrounded by people who are able to tell me the truth, who are able to offer conscious critique and who are interested in watching me expand. So I've always had folks like that, and so they've been able to reflect back when I was trying to figure out what doesn't add to the detail of it. But when I went through a bit of a career crisis and I was trying to figure out what I wanted next, that's what was reflected.
Tanya Geisler:How do we get you on more stage? How do we get that free? Because that's really where you come alive and that is the truth of it. So it's always been part of what I've enjoyed doing, and I feel extraordinarily grateful that I have been given some great opportunities. I did a TEDx talk back in 2012, 2012, lord and that definitely opened up a lot of doors for me.
Tanya Geisler:But I think largely when people see me somewhere, they will find other stages for me to be on. So I have been extremely lucky. That is the truth of it. I've been extremely lucky, I've been extremely fortunate, and I'm aware that can sound like diminishment. That is the truth. I'm extremely grateful for the luck that I've had and also know that I show up, I show up. I've got a gig in Norway at the end of October and that babes in the can, I have done it, I am working it, I'm running through my paces. So I work really hard on my craft. I'm actually creating a speaking checklist for folks who are interested and maybe don't know the questions to ask as they're going into discovery calls. So hopefully that'll be done by the time this is live and I'll be happy to share that with y'all.
Brooke Monaghan:Yes, oh my gosh. I would love to share that because I know that so many people want to be speaking and the thing that I see come up for a lot of folks is getting that first kind of opportunity, or the first few opportunities where you can then kind of show people. Right, this is something that I do, and I'm glad that you brought up the TEDx talk, because I was actually curious. I was going to ask you about that.
Brooke Monaghan:I know one other person who has done a TEDx talk, by the way, to your point about being lucky and fortunate but also showing up, this person is not doing a whole bunch of speaking engagements coming off of that TEDx talk, because they would be totally okay with me saying this they know that this is true. They're not born to be on stage speaking and they don't take it. That's not something that they take very seriously. And so for you I mean anybody who's watched you speak before which I've watched the TEDx talk everyone should go and watch it. It's like clear to me that people were like oh yeah, let's find more stages for talking, you know, but what was the TEDx talk process? Like? Like, because I know that there are people who are really interested in doing one of those one day. I'm curious if you have any insights to share.
Tanya Geisler:What I'll say is, once again, not dissimilar to this podcast. Getting that invitation was an absolute testament to just asking, so naming what it is you want. And so, actually, what's really magical? Sophia Moore was my client and we were on a retreat weekend in Whitby Island. So it's Tara myself, rona Dietrich, julie Daly and a couple of other amazing humans, and we're speaking with Leanne Raymond. So Leanne, who, as it happened, was, had invited TEDx to her town of Comox, and so we were just in the conversation and I said I want more stage and I want more stage. I'm just naming that, I'm declaring it. It was a full, it was a new moon situation. We did some spell casting. Oh, it was good, and through that we all got the invitation. We were like yes, I'd love more stage too.
Tanya Geisler:Let's make that happen. How do we make that happen? And then, very shortly after, leanne invited us all to come out and we shared. We did, we all shared the same stage together. It was extraordinary, but again, the power of asking, the power of clarity and the power of asking right place, right time, you got to show up and so you know. So it wasn't this like really elaborate application process that I know folks have to go through.
Tanya Geisler:I have applied for TEDx Toronto. Did not get a callback, just so you'll know. So you know, like, but it is, you've got to. You just have to make sure that you're asking, make sure that you are clear about what it is that you want, and then, in some ways, you know, dog with a bone, that resilience or that sort of that. I would say that tenacity, tenacity. But I was not going to. I was going to keep asking and asking, and asking, and asking, and asking until I made it happen. So that's, you know, that's what I highly recommend.
Tanya Geisler:Then the process itself. I mean, you know, it's like any other thing that really matters to you. You train, you train and you train and you train, and you go through a million iterations of what you think is important and then you strip it back and you, you know you are very discerning about the people that you run through it with. Again, you know, like your people, making sure that you are with people who are able to offer you conscious critique, that you have to be discerning with the people that you're going to you know perform for in practice. So that's that, that's, that's what comes off the top of my head.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, super helpful. And what I'm also hearing in there too is like, again, it's like the people that you surround yourself with, because if you didn't have those relationships then you wouldn't have ended up in that room, and you can't do that that's. That's not one of the kinds of things that you can aim directly at. Be like I'm going to form relationships that are going to get me to add X top, but if you are intentional about your relationships and nurturing relationships, and then with those people, you are intentional about sharing what you actually want and all of that, it's like there's things that happen that you can't really explain, but you can set it into motion by at least being clear and saying what you want.
Tanya Geisler:And yeah, and being in as many rooms as you know, as you are, as you can handle. The other thing, too is I think we don't talk about this enough. I tend I, you know I'm, I would say I'm an extroverted introvert and so, speaking, you know, being able to speak to a lot of people, got my message out in this bigger way and then being able to retreat, very, very, very important to me. So for some people that's you know, the this friend, that might not be how they're made up, right Like, but this is a way that I can really preserve my energy and and bring the best that I have.
Brooke Monaghan:Yeah, Speaking of preserving your energy, my final question for you I'm conscious of the fact that I have only five more minutes of your time is that? I'm curious if you ever play on podcasting again.
Tanya Geisler:Absolutely, absolutely, ready enough? Yeah, it's actually simply just going to be called with Tony Geisler.
Brooke Monaghan:Oh, I love it.
Tanya Geisler:I wanted to have the opportunity to have to be able to cover the myriad of all of the things, all of the all of the things Entrepreneurship with Tony Geisler, this comfort, like whatever it is. So, yeah, it's. Oh, it's coming back, baby, it's coming back ready enough, served a really valuable and important. It's a really important season for me to amplify some voices, to make sure explicitly clear that I am not the teacher for everyone. I wanted the opportunity for folks to meet Mackenzie Mack and to meet Deseret away and to meet other people that that have a lived experience in foster complex that I don't have. That was really important.
Tanya Geisler:And then, when we tied it up with the probably the most perfect, perfect interview, which is with Deepa ire all about the different roles that we play inside of social change, which stands the test of time there was actually nothing more I needed to say after that, because so much of my work is identity based. So how am I showing up to this new crisis? How am I showing up to the pandemic, which is when that was produced? How am I showing up? And that body of work that deep ire has has expressed is just, it stands the test of time. And that, to me was like there was. There was nothing else I wanted to say after that about that again, that season. So yeah, I'm coming, oh, I'm coming back baby.
Brooke Monaghan:I'm so excited to hear it and I just, I also just love that you had the, that you made that decision, like that you knew that that was the right thing to do for you and for your work. Because it reminds me of, like you know, when a TV show goes on for like you like love the show, like it's the best show ever and you're never going to stop watching it. And also it's like it goes on for so long that it sort of starts to like lose its, which I can't imagine your show having done that. But then there's those shows that are just like they end at the perfect time and you're like, oh my gosh, how did these show runners make the decision to end this like succession?
Brooke Monaghan:Succession just ended after what like right, and it's like that show could have continued to be such a popular show. But they were like Nope, we know what we need to do, we're ending it and it's just I actually have like goosebumps right now because I'm just like it's a part of creating that is, I actually think, like really important and can make something just so like chef's kiss, like you know just so good.
Brooke Monaghan:And ready enough is so good and I'm very, I would love to say I would love to say that there was all premeditated.
Tanya Geisler:It absolutely was not.
Brooke Monaghan:It really was just like oh oh yeah, but a lot of people would have gone. No, but the plan was yeah.
Tanya Geisler:Nobody got time for that. Nobody's got time for that. Nobody's got time for that. Nobody has time for that. No, let's like call, call the things, call the things. And yeah, absolutely it was just, it was the right time, it was the right conversation. That's where I wanted to leave the market. Now it's been. It's been a really fun sort of dreaming and scheming into what, what comes next, and it's I mean the talk about your mind maps, the where we're going to be taking. It is just very, it's very delicious. It's also going to be YouTube channel, which I'm really excited about.
Brooke Monaghan:I'm so excited. Okay, well, I am honored and just I'm so grateful for the fact that I was like leave Tanya for the end of the people to reach out to. I'm just going to start with the people who I know are, like you know, gonna and look at us. Now you are one of the first episodes for us to launch and I'm just really honored and I'm really grateful and this was so much fun and I'm really happy that we got to do this again.
Tanya Geisler:Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for receiving the bat signal. Folks, just remember to ask it clear what it is you want and then ask for it. There will be some yeses, there will be some noes, or there will be some silence, but there will be some yeses, there will be some. I am so delighted that you asked for this because he would get to do that, so thank you. Thank you for meeting the call, thank you for doing your work. I think you're reading your work with the integrity, with what you hold your work, and just I told you I have a. I got a lot of time for you. I got a lot of time for you. Thank you so much.