“Asking for help means I’m serious about my success” If that’s not a mic drop quote, I don’t know what is!
That’s just one of the gems from this bonus conversation with Tanya Geisler. We talk about the role of coaches—yes, even coaches need coaches—and how working with the right person can push us further in our personal and professional growth.
Tanya shares her experiences working with Desiree Adaway, her perspective on what makes a great coach, and how “Imposter Syndrome” shows up (or doesn’t) when seeking support.
Watch the video or read the transcript below—because this is the reminder we all need that asking for help is actually a power move.
[Also, be sure to listen to our incredible conversation about “Imposter Syndrome” in today’s episode of Feminist Founders podcast.]
Becky Mollenkamp: Hi, Tanya, thanks for doing this.
Tanya Geisler: Hello, happy to be here.
Becky Mollenkamp: First of all, please go listen to the episode that we just recorded, because it was really great. And I so appreciate your willingness to have that nuanced conversation around your life's work. And so thank you. And part of what we talked about was your work with Desiree Adaway as a coach. And you talked a lot about just your teachers in general. But I think it's interesting for people to hear, because I often hear this from people, like, you have a coach too? And I think for sometimes new coaches that can even feel like, well, if I need a coach, what's it say about me? I must not be doing my work well or something. And it's like, no, everyone, like if you really believe in coaching as a coach, you should believe it enough to hire a coach. So tell me a little bit about your experience with hiring Desiree or working with Desiree or other coaching experiences that you've had. What made you realize like I should probably get a coach here?
Tanya Geisler: So what, yeah, like our other conversation, like four different doors we can go through right now. One of my most fundamental beliefs is that we're not supposed to go any of this alone. And you can have, and I think cultivating deep roots, deep relationships is what makes the world go round. And working with somebody like a coach who can be very clean about what your agenda is, is vital. It's absolutely vital because every single person in your life who you have carefully curated loves you and wants the best on your behalf, but is also largely colluding with your own saboteurs. They're gonna tell you you're great. If I'd have listened to anybody else in my life before I started working with Desiree, seriously, they would have been like, you're not a racist, why would you wanna do that? Because I need to have somebody who has an external perspective on my life and who can also hold a much bigger vision for me. And that's, we're just not that great at doing that in our regular life. So Desiree is not somebody that I work with on an ongoing basis, but I'm blessed to have her in my life. So, but when there is a thing that is coming up, we will get into a conversation. I just think of a coach as somebody who can just take you further down whatever the path is. When you recognize that you are at a precipice point, at an inflection point, and what got you here ain't gonna get you there, it's time for a coach. So I hire people who are more successful in that functional area than I am. So whether it's in social justice, whether it's in... for honestly mostly social justice and I'm being really, really honest. But you know, I've worked with business coaches before. When I get to that precipice point, that's the time that I reach out for a coach. I don't typically work with anybody on an ongoing basis, like for any really, really long period of time, which is also how I've structured my own coaching practice. You know, I feel like if I'm working with somebody for a really long period of time, one of us isn't doing our work or we're both not doing our work.
Becky Mollenkamp: Yeah, I totally feel that. What do you look for in a coach? What’s most important to you? And my guess is going to be, if it’s anything like me, it’s also reflective of what you are bringing to the coaching table or what you feel like is important for people who are hiring you. But what matters to you in that coach to make sure it’s going to be a good relationship?
Tanya Geisler: I mean, I really do. Honestly, I don’t know that I’ve ever actually... every coach that I’ve ever worked with, I have had some kind of whether it’s been a referral or it’s been a we’ve had a conversation and I just think, they see something that I don’t. They hold a perspective that I don’t. So there’s enough of an intersection of, you know, worldviews converge in the right ways. But then there is this other aspect of them that they have a line of sight on that I simply don’t have. So I’ll be real transparent with you. I don’t do a lot of research. I just do a lot of it by gut and referral. And I have done not very many, but I’ll take them up on a sample session or I’ll take them up on a discovery session. I think these are beautiful and really valuable things to have on offer. And I really just trust that... I trust that they are who they say they are, but usually they come with some kind of a referral, or I’ve met them and have a sense that they are who they say they are. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp: My theory, you tell me if I’m right, because I’m the same way, is that built inside of that referral is a belief that there is a shared value system. Because for me anyway, that’s the most important thing. I want to work with people who have a shared value system as their coach, and I only want coaches who have a shared value system. And that’s why referrals in my business are so important. And also in the way I do business because that comes with that inherent like, I trust that we share values. So I’m gonna guess that’s part of what that is for you.
Tanya Geisler: Yes. Yeah, that’s what I meant actually. And that was probably a cleaner way to say we have a shared worldview. Yeah, that’s the definite values. And I’m also open to, yeah, so the worldview shared values, but that they hold a perspective that I don’t hold, or they hold a particular skill set that I don’t. And they’re more, again, successful (using air quotes on that). Because I think that’s, you know, it’s like everything else, right? We want to make sure that if I’m being critiqued for something, it’s by somebody who has a rhetorically sound perspective on it because they have a deeper analysis of it or they’ve gone farther down that road than I have as a trailblazer, right? So I want to be able to learn from folks who have gone a little bit farther in that area than I have.
Becky Mollenkamp: Speaking of trailblazer and imposter complex, I’m curious, and this will be the last piece, does that ever get activated for you when you are thinking about needing a coach and or working with a coach? Does it ever... is there ever that little voice going like if you like you shouldn’t need this or if you really knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t need this help or anything like that? I’m just curious if that ever gets activated for you.
Tanya Geisler: Becky, honestly, no, I will say no because I’ve been very... to me, one of my fundamental understandings is this: Asking for help means I’m serious about my success. One of the lies of the imposter complex is that only the weak ask for help, right? No, actually asking for help means I’m serious about my success. It means that I’m serious about getting to the good good, that I’m serious about making sure that I’m bringing my absolute best. And the other thing too is, sometimes I’ll work with a coach, I’ll work with a therapist to make sure that I have off-gassed absolutely everything that I can so that I can bring my best to my clients. So not only am I serious about my own success, I’m serious about my craft. I’m serious about the integrity with which I hold a coaching relationship. It’s a non-negotiable for me. Asking for help means I’m serious about all of this. So no, I actually feel fairly clean in that area. I don’t know that it was always true—been doing this for about 20 years, so there might have been moments—but yeah, I think it might be like in a skill, I might think I should know this by now. But not when it comes to actually deepening my coaching or my understanding of my social justice work or divesting from, you know, well, deepening into my anti-racism work for sure. I have no issue with that at all.
Becky Mollenkamp: That’s great. Yeah, I think maybe it’s a sign of when you’re earlier on in a journey where that stuff will come up, like I can’t ask for help or what does it say about me? So I’m glad that it doesn’t anymore. And I just love what you said about how it means I’m serious about my success. I hope that sits with people because it will sit with me as somebody who has often struggled with asking for help because of my own personal conditioning from childhood, not to mention some societal conditioning and all of that.
Tanya Geisler: Yes.
Becky Mollenkamp: There are times when I struggle to ask for help, not around certain things, certainly not around the areas where I know it is understandable that I’m deficient, like, you know, in my anti-racism work, obviously I need help there. But there are times with certain things where I’ll think, what does it say about me if I have to ask for help here? And I absolutely love that idea that it means I’m serious about my success. So thank you for that. That’s a great nugget.
Tanya Geisler: Yeah, and I also love the compassion you bring in. I think sometimes asking for help is really heavy work. I will say that my bigger challenge, when I work with any kind of programs, it’s pretty experiential for me. I don’t have a problem asking for help. What I do struggle with is doing things on my own. That’s actually where I struggle more—trying to figure things out on my own. That’s where I feel very... but asking for help? I actually just wrote this in my proposal... in my book proposal that is finally going out on Tuesday. My goodness. Woo. You know, I said, like, I feel very fortunate that asking for help is not my edge to grow. And I think that’s the other thing too, in the bigger conversation, we have to figure out what our edges are to grow because it’s not all the same. Asking for help, that’s not mine. But I understand the complexity, you know, the betrayal, the disappointment, all of the things that show up with it and the conditioning, you know, what does it say about you? So yes, I totally understand that too.
Becky Mollenkamp: We are so opposite in that. I just recently shared on Threads that my growth edge is learning how to be in community. I never had examples of that in my whole life. It’s just not my experience. So of course, I was conditioned to be very independent, which really means I was very self-centered. It was all about like me and how do I take care of myself? And I never learned how to exist within community, how to receive help, how to ask for help. So I have the opposite problems. It’s very interesting.
Tanya Geisler: Yep.
Becky Mollenkamp: Again, both are just growth edges, and I love that.
Tanya Geisler: And of course, that’s why you’re creating the community you’re creating, right? Your ministry is where your misery has been.
Becky Mollenkamp: That’s it. Yes, that definitely resonates. Go back to the main episode to hear that. All right. Well, thank you so much for this bonus conversation. I absolutely love this, too. And just thank you for all your time.
Tanya Geisler: It was so much fun. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It was delightful to be with you.