We recently connected with Misha Bleymaier-Farrish and have shared our conversation below.

Misha, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

I’m the founder and creator of the GSD Factor Life, which includes 6 attributes that I believe every single one of us needs in order to be successful in our professional and personal lives. These attributes include being confident, inquisitive, imaginative, present, resilient, and influential. When you activate all these, you are able to get sh*t done. You see, I’ve had this conversation countless times with my clients, podcast guests, readers of my 3 books, and attendees to my talks and workshops.

More about these 6 key attributes:

The power to Be Confident – The confidence to know your true authentic self, to know your voice, to speak your truth so that you are heard. You lead by example with assertiveness giving you a sense of empowerment and confidence.

The capacity to Be Inquisitive – We are always learning, always students of life. To walk in humility knowing that you are not the smartest person in the room but know how to mobilize the right team and people ensures that you are open to the fullness of life.

The determination to Be Imaginative – To dream big, never be satisfied with the status quo, be an innovating solutionist, and to continue to break down barriers. It’s saying “I’m here” and asking, “What can we improve, what is impossible that we can make possible?”

The ability to Be Present – To keep showing up, even if for a moment. It’s the art of starting to do something, anything, and trusting that process even when it seems that there are more pivots than plans. And it’s living with the attitude of progress not perfection.

The choice to Be Resilient – The stamina, grit, and perseverance to acknowledge that life can be sh*t and also recognize how to learn and grow and turn the negatives into positives.

The connection to Be Influential – You lead by example as an actionable leader, you look to the future and also bring the next generation alongside you and mentor them so they can stand on your shoulders.

This is how I have lived my life through my 20-year corporate career primarily in insurance and technology and now 4 years as an entrepreneur. I believe we all have the GSD Factor within us, it’s just a matter of reigniting and reactivating what may have been muted. We all can thrive and succeed when the right tools are activated within us.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Misha Bleymaier-Farrish, founder of GSD Factor, and I’m an author, entrepreneur, technology strategist, speaker, and more. You could say I wear many hats. I provide a unique perspective that pairs logistical understanding with innovative vision-casting and development, cultivated through 20 years of experience in insurance, operations, and technology. I have built and led sales teams from the ground up, consulted for some of the largest retail brands, guided organizations on their digital transformations, partnered with the world’s largest CRM organization for over a decade, and been head of technology while disrupting an insurance sector in the US.

My life motto is GSD – “Get sh*t done,” and I bring that philosophy to every organization, client, or project.

Through GSD Factor Consulting, we partner with our clients to identify, innovate, and implement solutions that ignite a change throughout organizations by evaluating people, process, and technology.

I’m an advocate for the under-voiced, mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders across all industries, empowering those that need professional direction and clarity. I’m a strong believer in individuals collaborating to empower and encourage one another as we trailblaze our industries and bring about much needed change.

The GSD Factor Life Series launched with a podcast before publishing the series’ flagship book, The GSD Factor, followed quickly by two interactive workbooks before publishing the first children’s book and coloring book, GSD Factor Juniors.

Learn more at gsdfactor.com.

Have you ever had to pivot?

My life has included many pivots. My earliest memory of having to make a pivot decision, a decision which completely changed the trajectory of my life, started at the age of sixteen. I was on my way to a professional dance career with our ballet company, training with some amazing dancers who would go on to the likes of Juilliard, Alvin Ailey, and Boston Conservatory. As the youngest member of the junior company by two years, my path was already taking a slightly different direction because of school, but my instructors, parents, and I had a plan to graduate early to open the way for me to go to the Royal Ballet of Canada.

Then I got sick, very sick. For two years I didn’t know what was wrong, but all of a sudden, my body and brain could no longer do the things that I had been trained to do. They wouldn’t listen to the commands and muscle memory. After a long stretch of the unknown and uncertainty, countless tests and doctors, I was finally diagnosed with Lyme’s disease. At this time, the research surrounding Lyme’s disease was relatively new, and there wasn’t much known about this debilitating, even life-threatening, disease. At the time of diagnosis, doctors gave me less than three months to live.

My focus in life was no longer ballet training in the studio for more than six hours per day but just trying to walk or swim in the pool. My focus was no longer on studying like crazy trying to complete high school earlier to pursue my ballet career, but rather, on pivoting to figure out if I was going to live, what my career and passion would become without dance.

For many years, I had to find other outlets besides dance and one of those outlets turned out to be authoring books and coaching people and corporate teams. Throughout my GSD Factor Life book series, I share my personal experiences and lessons I learned along the way. I provide thought-provoking journal prompts and action plans that are curated in a way to ignite a transformation.

I love dreaming big and planting that seed in others. I love getting in a room and white-boarding out themes, concepts, and words and then seeing how it all ties together. I live for the text message or call that says, “I have a problem. Can we chat?” I get joy from putting words to people’s plans or journey mapping in action. It feels good to know that I helped someone do something amazing, or given them key steps and a plan for what to do next. If those circumstances with my health hadn’t happened, I would not be sitting where I am today. Those events, and how I allowed them to mold and shape me, opened up opportunities for the future.

There are times in everyone’s life when we come to a decision point or crossroads where it is clear that there are two paths, two choices. Those are the pivot moments that can lead to reinvention and a whole different set of opportunities. These decisions can be scary because of the uncertainty around pausing, re-evaluating, pivoting, and relaunching, but they can also be hugely profitable and impactful if navigated effectively.

My biggest advice to people is to powerfully choose to embrace the pivot. My personal definition of “powerfully choose” is great force of energy and determination. Pivots in our professional or personal lives can be a gift. A gift of pausing, re-evaluating, then pivoting and relaunching. The important thing to remember is that you need to keep showing up. Perhaps you can create a list of small, go-to steps that will ensure you keep showing up, which means being present, even for a moment, and by powerfully choosing, you are showing up with great force of energy and determination. It’s the art of doing something – anything, and trusting that process, even when it seems that there are more pivots than plans.

Whatever the steps are, they will be unique to your life and situation. By writing it down and saying it out loud, we are manifesting. We are calling forth. We are putting it into the universe and giving it energy. When you start to powerfully choose to embrace the pivots, you begin to live a fullness of life and step into your extraordinary.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I had come off of maternity leave to find my job different than it had been before. For weeks, I could feel hostility directed at me that I couldn’t explain. I had returned to such an immense amount of work and pressure, that after a while, the only conclusion I could come to was that my company, a major insurance and financial services organization, was working to make me quit or have me fired, whichever came first. So, when at the end of the year, they assigned me a behemoth project, I knew that they all assumed I would fail. Yet they weren’t ready for my resiliency to kick into overdrive.

For six weeks, my team and I worked crazy hours under immense pressure and managed to complete one of the most complicated and intense financial audits our company had encountered. I’m talking about a massive information security overhaul. This type of project would normally take years to complete, and here we were barreling towards a six-week completion goal. I was accustomed to being called in to do the inconceivable, so this was nothing new for me. The unexpected thing, though, is that my superiors, the people who should have been rooting for my success, seemed to be hoping for the opposite.

It was, essentially, an impossible project, because the timeline was impractical. They assigned the project the week leading into Thanksgiving, and it was due New Year’s Day. Six weeks. Six weeks to prepare for an audit for which months would have been an unreasonable timeline. There was no way it would happen, and they knew it. Additionally, because it was an audit that was so important to the organization, they knew that when it failed, they would have cause to fire me. They had handed me a ready-made fail project with the intent to make me the scapegoat.

What they didn’t expect, however, was that I would use this as motivation. I am a master at getting sh*t done, or as I like to say, “GSDing.” This project, though meant to destroy me, simply stirred a fire-in-the-belly passion to prove them wrong. This was dedication and resiliency in action, and I was going to GSD the sh*t out of it. And guess what? We delivered. We made the deadline. On New Years’ Day, I submitted the completed audit with all corresponding documentation to the surprise of my managers. Not only did we meet all the expectations of the audit, that auditor said that it was the best run, best laid out, and most organized audit he had ever been through, and he had been through a lot over his 30-year career for a nationally and world recognized bank.

I’m a strong believer that you can learn something from any experience or anyone. This is the mindset shift I go into as I embrace any change or challenge and powerfully choose to turn it into an opportunity.

Whether it’s your own experience or something you hear along the way that makes an impact, you can learn what to do and, more importantly, what not to do. As you exercise this muscle more and more, you can have check-ins with yourself to make sure you are in that mindset earlier in the challenge. Asking yourself questions such as, “Is this challenge going to teach me what to do or what not to do? Is this a growth challenge that will propel me to the next chapter or milestone?” Asking ourselves these questions during the change or challenge can activate our resilience and confidence to keep showing up, no matter the adversity we are facing.

Living life with the mindset of learning something from everything and anyone is powerful because it allows us to grow as individuals at a faster rate. It also gives us a lens of gratitude – gratitude for the pivots and challenges because it makes us more confident and resilient and helps us accomplish new achievements along the way.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.gsdfactor.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gsdfactor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088287943497
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gsdfactor
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gsdfactor5630

Image Credits

Mat Brown