Ready Enough
Conversations about the Imposter Complex and Unshakeable Confidence in Leadership, Business & Life. If you ever question whether you’re ready enough, good enough, or smart enough to reach your goals, this show is for you. Tanya Geisler, a leadership coach and mentor for high-achieving women, hosts important conversations about the Imposter Complex, the phenomenon that has us questioning our experience and credibility any time we decide to step up and out of our comfort zones. She talks about the mindset you need to step into your starring role and achieve your goals with leaders in personal development, mental health, anti-racism, diversity, and women’s leadership.
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Social Change Roles and the Imposter Complex with Deepa Iyer
04/21/2020
Social Change Roles and the Imposter Complex with Deepa Iyer
Amidst the complex emotions that of course I’m experiencing and certainly bearing witness to while navigating the realities of the current uncertainty precipitated by COVID 19, one of the most common threads I can discern is a well-intended but despair-filled sense of, “but what can I DO?” “I’m not DOING enough.” And this DOING, and this enoughness, that need for identity has been one that has caused a lot of struggle and confusion and inefficiency. Comparison too. So when my friend and former Ready Enough Podcast guest, Staci Jordan, shared a Medium post on Facebook called “Mapping our Social Change Roles in Times of Crisis,” it rang a LOT of bells and ticked a LOT of boxes. I found myself bringing into my coaching conversations, and into my group program called Your Impeccable Impact. It’s been so helpful to guide people into an understanding of where they, you, I are best suited to serve in THIS current situation, context, and season. And once we see where we are best suited, we can dive on in and not feel the need to wear all the hats or capes. But we MUST fill our role as best we can. We are all needed. That’s my rallying cry. So in this episode of Ready Enough, I am joined by the author of this amazing article, Deepa Iyer. Deepa is a Senior Advisor at Building Movement Project and Director of , a project that provides trainings, narratives, and resources on building deep and lasting multiracial solidarity and sustainability of social change ecosystems. Iyer is a South Asian American writer, lawyer, strategist, facilitator, and activist whose areas of expertise include the post 9/11 America experiences of South Asian, Muslim, Arab and Sikh immigrants, immigration and civil rights policies, and racial equity and solidarity practices. And so in this episode, we dig into her framework from the “Mapping our Social Change Roles in Times of Crisis” article, how the Imposter Complex shows up when we’re navigating these roles, how the Imposter Complex shows up for Deepa, and what went into her writing her book, We Too Sing America. More from Deepa Iyer: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Neurodivergence and Creating a Culture of Belonging with Eli Trier
02/12/2020
Neurodivergence and Creating a Culture of Belonging with Eli Trier
Eli Trier joins me on the Ready Enough Podcast in this episode, and she knows a thing or two about when people come up against the Imposter Complex. Eli coaches community leaders in building their communities through Online Community Projects. And when it comes to finding a sense of belonging in community, the Imposter Complex loves to show up — both for community members, but also for community hosts. As Eli so beautifully reminds us at the beginning of our conversation, “We all feel like we don’t belong.” So we get into it. We talk about the Imposter Complex and creating a Culture of Belonging. Then, Eli shares truthfully, honestly, and generously about her experience of the Imposter Complex, but then how a diagnosis really opened up her whole life to see what else was making her feel like a square peg in a round hole and how neurodiversity fits into creating a Culture of Belonging. More from Eli Trier: More from Tanya Geisler:
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The Problem of 'Fake it to make it' with Janelle Allen
12/04/2019
The Problem of 'Fake it to make it' with Janelle Allen
Janelle Allen helps folx get their brilliance out into the world through courses and course creation. With a background in academia, she uses her skills in understanding how adults learn to create online courses that deliver results — which is of course exactly where the Imposter Complex loves to hang out. We talk about how Janelle hasn’t necessarily identified with the Imposter Complex, how Janelle’s program Finish Your Damn Course! (brilliant name, no?) was basically a response to her clients that kept getting tripped up by the Imposter Complex and how the Imposter Complex shows up for folx at all levels of business, and how “fake it till you make it” is a very privileged mindset. More from Janelle Allen: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Trauma and the Imposter Complex with Nicole Lewis-Keeber
11/20/2019
Trauma and the Imposter Complex with Nicole Lewis-Keeber
I’m so happy to get to share Nicole Lewis-Keeber with you all today. Her work is deep and has that resonance of popcorning ahas. Nicole is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker turned business therapist and mindset coach who helps entrepreneurs identify the patterns that cause friction and dysfunction in their businesses. She helps them identify trauma of all kinds, rework habits, and redefine relationships—with themselves, their team members, and their businesses. Nicole and I have known each other for several years now, so we are intimately familiar with each other’s work. Nicole shares that the Imposter Complex shows up for her in People Pleasing and Leaky Boundaries and how it’s a delicate and tricky process to determine when those things are a symptom of the Imposter Complex and when they are a symptom of trauma—because they can look very similar. I was struck by the simplicity with which she named that the Imposter Complex is the wounding around how you see yourself. Super clear and super powerful. Nicole shares some of her own experience in a school system that did not support her learning, and then how trauma can show up in your business as an entrepreneur when we replicate patterns that are disruptive and harmful to ourselves. We also talk some about our inner kiddos, as she calls the sweetest part of our formative selves whose desire for safety cannot be betrayed. I think you’ll love this conversation as I did. More from Nicole Lewis-Keeber: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Self-Doubt is Proof of Your Humanity with McKensie Mack
11/06/2019
Self-Doubt is Proof of Your Humanity with McKensie Mack
The deeply wise, deeply generous McKensie Mack joins me on Ready Enough today to share a rich interview that digs 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. McKensie is an anti-oppression consultant, coach, and facilitator, working with organizations to develop cultures of accountability that dismantle racism and gender inequity at the individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels. Together we talk about determining whether we’re deserving or worthy (spoiler: the answer is always yes), dismantling systems of harm vs. being used by the system to perpetuate harm, why we give up on our own healing, setting your boundaries, and dealing with leaky boundaries. More from McKensie Mack: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Accepting Your Worthiness and Investing in Your Support with Lena West
10/23/2019
Accepting Your Worthiness and Investing in Your Support with Lena West
Today the incomparable Lena West joins me on the Ready Enough podcast. Lena is a unique blend of coach, techie, marketing whiz, cheerleader, and intuitive guide. She helps women-identified entrepreneurs get real about business growth and what it truly means to show up for yourself and your business. Over the years, I’ve come to count on her honesty, directness, brilliance, depth, hilarity, power, and profound generosity. Lena has done my Imposter Complex work, and in this conversation, we talk about worthiness and mistrust of ease. I’ve witnessed Lena’s ability to SEE a business model bigger than people can see for themselves and we talk about why folx are afraid of that vision. This is part of Lena’s gift in helping folx reclaiming the title of CEO and what that means for them. We also talk about the pain of not feeling yourself surrounded by the right people and Lena shares a fabulous analogy of diminishment being a booty call. And the Imposter Complex being smoked gouda that will forever make me laugh. More from Lena West: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Arc of Power with Elizabeth DiAlto
10/09/2019
Arc of Power with Elizabeth DiAlto
Today I am thrilled to have the brilliant light that is Elizabeth DiAlto on the show with me. Elizabeth’s energy is infectious and pretty much NOTHING is off the table. We talked about her 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. What I really appreciate is how HONEST Elizabeth is about having a hard time trusting people...because even with best intentions, if they’re not looking at their stuff, what’s being acted upon can be really damaging and harmful. Which I just think is such a great argument for being in INTEGRITY with yourself, right? Be in integrity SUCH THAT you are trustworthy. That’s what I endeavour to do in any case. More from Elizabeth DiAlto: Elizabeth’s podcast: More from Tanya Geisler:
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The Imposter Complex and Parenting Against the Grain with Nic Strack
09/18/2019
The Imposter Complex and Parenting Against the Grain with Nic Strack
In this episode of Ready Enough, you will hear how fond I am of my guest, Nic Strack. Nic was in my Starring Role Academy in 2018 and watching them do the brave work of deepening into who they were becoming was a profound privilege and joy. Nic is a parenting coach and so in this episode, we talk some about what Nic calls “against the grain parenting” which they know a lot about as a non-binary parent. We talk about how exhausting this can be and as such why self-care matters and what self-care really is (hint: it’s not just about sheet masks and massages...though it can be that too). Of course as ever, we talk about how the Imposter Complex insists upon perfection, how even thinking about “ready enough” may presume that we aren’t taking responsibility for doing harm, and as such why reparations are vital in this space of swinging out imperfectly. More from Nic Strack: More from Tanya Geisler:
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The Complexity of Uncertainty with Meg Lightheart
09/04/2019
The Complexity of Uncertainty with Meg Lightheart
Today on the Ready Enough Podcast, I have the joy of speaking with the deeply wise and powerful Meg Lightheart. Meg is a presentation coach for people with a vision and a leadership coach for people facing uncertainty, complexity, and mess. She particularly likes supporting people who feel in over their heads and who sense that what's got them to where they are isn't going to get them through this next set of challenges. So together, we’re talking about where the Imposter Complex show up for folx doing presentations and other types of performance. We talk about where the Imposter Complex shows up in leadership and the ever-so-vital distinctions between independent leadership and interdependent leadership. 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 Impostor 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. More from Meg Lightheart: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Unraveling the Imposter Complex with Staci Jordan Shelton
07/31/2019
Unraveling the Imposter Complex with Staci Jordan Shelton
Staci Jordan Shelton is one of my absolute favorite teachers. She is a performance consultant and coach working with leaders, creatives, and entrepreneurs to uncover—to unravel—the things that influence and impact their performance, processes, and overall results. Staci is all about releasing Humans from captivity and the tyranny of limited beliefs, behaviors, and binaries—self-imposed or otherwise. By helping humans get free of the lies that hold them hostage, she is helping in cultivating a lifestyle of powerful self-love, self-acceptance, agency, freedom, and abundance. And those lies that keep us hostage? They are the tools of white supremacy, patriarchy, and the Imposter Complex. And so, I invited Staci here on the Ready Enough Podcast to go deep with me in unraveling some of these holds that the Imposter Complex—or other systems—have on us. More from Staci Jordan Shelton: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Living Unrestrained With Vanessa Mentor
07/16/2019
Living Unrestrained With Vanessa Mentor
While my Imposter Complex work is confronting at the best of times, resistance and obstacles present themselves, to be certain, and I wanted Vanessa Mentor here to shine a light on her unique lived experience as a woman living and working in Haiti. 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. She specializes in working with ambitious professional women, free-spirited creatives, and feminists entrepreneurs, who want to engage in their career, take care of their family, have relationships they want, without complying to niceness and and getting diverted by the 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. We also talk about how challenging is it to run an online business when internet connectivity is contingent upon weather and political climate, how the Imposter Complex then plays into THAT space of belonging, and being the only woman from Haiti in a space of North Americans and Europeans and Australians. More from Vanessa Mentor: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Getting Comfortable to Unravel the Imposter Complex with Dina Nina Martinez
07/03/2019
Getting Comfortable to Unravel the Imposter Complex with Dina Nina Martinez
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. What makes us feel like we don’t belong can take many forms. Sometimes it’s the Imposter Complex trying to keep us out of action, and sometimes it’s an experience of oppression — transphobia, for instance. So in this episode of the Ready Enough podcast, I’ve invited Dina Nina Martinez to share how the Imposter Complex shows up in her life. Dina is a Trans & Gender Identity teacher, a comedian, actor, and writer. Together we talk about how Dina experience the Imposter complex, how the Imposter Complex presents differently as a comedian, speaker, or actor, missed opportunities to bridge understanding, some Trans and Gender 101, Dina’s personal methods for dealing with the Imposter Complex, procrastination patterns, and what has helped her to “love herself out loud.” More from Dina Nina Martinez: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Alcohol Misuse and the Imposter Complex with Andrea Owen
06/19/2019
Alcohol Misuse and the Imposter Complex with Andrea Owen
The language folx use when talking about problematic drinking is pretty much EXACTLY how I speak about the Imposter Complex. It keeps us out of action, doubting our capacity, and alone and isolated. And it has me thinking: when are we blaming our stuckness on the Imposter Complex when actually it’s alcohol use or overuse—NOT a mindset issue. And that’s why I invited Andrea Owen on the show. Andrea is a life coach and author who helps women let go of the shitty self-talk. AND she’s someone who has quit drinking and become sober. So together in this episode, Andrea and I talk about the intersection of the Imposter Complex, belonging, and alcohol, marketing alcohol to women...and how it’s a feminist issue, and a question folx who quit drinking ask: can I trust what I built before I got sober? More from Andrea Owen: More from Tanya Geisler:
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The Anxiety + Imposter Complex Tag Team with Jo Casey
06/05/2019
The Anxiety + Imposter Complex Tag Team with Jo Casey
Today on the Ready Enough podcast, I am honoured and delighted to have my friend and colleague Jo Casey on the show. I wanted to talk to her about something she deals with on an on-going basis that I do not. And that I know many of you do. And that is Anxiety. When is the experience of staying out of action, doubting our capacity, and feeling alone and isolated the Imposter Complex and when is it anxiety? In this episode, Jo and I talk discuss that “positive thinking” to rid yourself of your problems is only part of the story, how Jo sees her anxiety and the imposter complex as a tag team, how anxiety functions with its on illogical logic, when anxiety can actually serve a semi-positive role (for Jo, it can make her hyper-focused), how anxiety plays into the sense of belonging, when anxiety plays into the lie of the impostor complex of “you must tell no one,” how anxiety plays into work and entrepreneur culture, and how messaging around anxiety functions differently in our culture for women. More from Jo Casey: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Healthism and Fat Phobia with Hilary Kinavey
06/05/2019
Healthism and Fat Phobia with Hilary Kinavey
I’ve been doing work around the Imposter Complex for a long time now, but my goal with this podcast is to shed light on folx who experience the Imposter Complex differently, depending on how they had experienced marginalization in the dominant culture. Because sometimes it’s the Imposter Complex that's in the way, but many times it’s a lived experience of racism or sexism, colonialism, micro-aggressions, trauma, anxiety, chronic pain, alcoholism or fat phobia... and Hilary Kinavey’s work with body compassion and weight inclusivity really adds to this conversation—so I had to have her on the show. Hilary is a professional counselor, facilitator, educator, speaker, writer, and activist. She co-founded Be Nourished, LLC with Dana Sturtevant in 2006. Her work encourages movement toward a liberation-based model of care to heal internalized body shame and associated patterns of chronic dieting and disordered eating. She is a sought after speaker on topics such as weight-inclusive approaches, weight bias, Body Trust, and the intersections of activism and therapy. She offers individual counseling and coaching, consultation, and trainings for organizations and professional groups. Hilary and I talk about how we experience the Imposter Complex differently based on our lived experiences in marginalized parts of culture, inclusion of conversations about size and fat phobia in social justice circles, healthism and the social determinants of health, fat. vs. obesity vs. overweight, why we are so afraid of being fat and of other fat people, and the importance of recognizing and naming our privilege and how this affects our credibility. More from Hilary Kinavey: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Liberatory Consciousness with Desiree Adaway
06/05/2019
Liberatory Consciousness with Desiree Adaway
Today I am delighted to have my coach and friend Desiree Adaway on the show. Desiree helped me see, integrate, and then SPEAK this truth in every single and all gigs—that race, class, age, gender, ethnicity, gender expression, and other identities will always come into play as you do this work, and that I, Tanya, will not always be the best person to provide you support you need to do this work of shifting our mindset around leadership. AND I am committed to helping you reduce barriers and using my privilege to connect you to networks, resources, and teachers that CAN support you on this journey. So in this episode, Desiree and I talk about Desiree’s understanding of liberation and identities and how these two work together when it comes to navigating our world—and informing our Impostor Complex. We outline the frameworks of liberatory consciousnesses: awareness, analysis, action, and accountability. We talk about why we are so scared of getting it wrong and how this determines our every move, getting over the sense that if we do something wrong then we are wrong at our core. So a lot of that comes down to understanding the characteristics of white supremacy and focusing on brave spaces instead of safe spaces. Then we offer different ways of showing up with this deeper understanding to do the work. More from Desiree Adway: More from Tanya Geisler:
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Welcome to the Ready Enough Podcast
05/24/2019
Welcome to the Ready Enough Podcast
If you ever question whether you’re ready enough, good enough, or smart enough to reach your goals, this show is for you. Tanya Geisler, a leadership coach and mentor for high-achieving women, hosts important conversations about the Imposter Complex, the phenomenon that has us questioning our experience and credibility any time we decide to step up and out of our comfort zones. She talks about the mindset you need to step into your starring role and achieve your goals with leaders in personal development, mental health, anti-racism, diversity, and women’s leadership.
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