We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tanya Geisler. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tanya below.

Alright, Tanya thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How do you think about vacations as a business owner? Do you take them and if so, how? If you don’t, why not?

I am a BIG proponent of taking vacations.

In my work as a speaker and leadership coach, I get to travel a fair bit to new and exciting places…for instance, next month I’ll be in Nashville one week and Oslo another. Two very different places I’ve been keen to visit and just haven’t made it happen.

It’s tempting to chalk up the downtime I’ll have there as vacation (especially as in both cases, I’m bringing my partner with me), but I know myself well enough to recognize that I will still be ON while I’m there…meaning it WON’T be a vacation.

Hustle culture has told us that taking vacations means we aren’t serious about our business. I think the opposite is true. My business means the world to me, AND I only bring my best when I am well-resourced. And the best way I know to fully resource myself is with vacations and TRUE uninterrupted downtime. So as much as I love my client work, my clients deserve me at my best.

Tanya, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started my career in advertising. Though it didn’t feel like it was my “calling” I was quite good at it, and still, every bit of success I had, I tended to chalk up to luck, fluke or timing.

I went through a bit of an existential career crisis when my mother passed away and my daughter was born within 8 months of each other. This was an inflection point for me to consider what I really wanted to do with this (as Mary Oliver says) “one wild and precious life”…and it was clear it wasn’t advertising.

I found coaching through a circuitous route, but once there, discover that no matter how successful my clients were (they’d sat on Oprah’s couch, had NYT bestselling books) they seems to experience that same throughline as I did: they chalked up their success to luck, fluke or timing.

Over time, I began to recognize this as the Imposter Complex (aka Imposter Syndrome) and it became my life’s work to help folks navigate it.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Like many entrepreneurs, I spent a LOT of time looking to others for the answers. I looked to others to show me a path forward. Following a lot of advice that was never designed for me.

Which meant I took a LOT of wrong turns.

Each one, of course, got me closer to MY path, something I can only see in hindsight. The longer I’m in this work, the more clearly I can see how there was never any path for me but the one I was and am still carving.

I’m a fan of knowing the rules to break the rules, and still love to learn from others…but I have enough discernment to recognize if I’m not seeing the thing I want to do? It’s because I am the one who hasn’t done that thing yet.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I’ve always been committed to being in this work for the long haul, and have understood that it’s good work, visibility and integrity that builds (and maintains) a reputation.

My body of work is strong and I continue to dig deeper to remain proficient, but if my clients can’t count on me to show up to our work with integrity, (or if they can’t find me because I’m not being visible), I don’t have a business…I have a hobby. And I CERTAINLY don’t have the reputation that keeps bringing folks back to me at every stage of their expansion.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.tanyageisler.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tanyageisler/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanyageisler/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Em-IIAQ6I&t=4s
• Other: TEDx Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Em-IIAQ6I&t=4s

Image Credits
Marius Masalar Danielle Cohen Margot Daley