Understanding the Trailblazer Complex with Tanya Geisler

Becky Mollenkamp: Hi, Tanya, thanks for being here.

Tanya Geisler: It is absolutely my delight. Thank you so, so much for having me.

Becky Mollenkamp: We’re gonna talk about imposter complex, and I have lots of thoughts and feelings about it, which I’ve shared many times on this podcast. So I know it’s gonna be a good conversation. Before we dig in, tell me about your relationship with feminism.

Tanya Geisler: I mean, I think it’s a little like my relationship with breathing, or my relationship with drinking water. It’s just always been there. I didn’t even know that I had a relationship with feminism, it just existed.

I feel like I’m in the right relationship with feminism now. A big shift for me was understanding the distinction between the feminism I’ve known all my life—basically the water I’ve been swimming in—and intersectional feminism. That was a big moment for me, realizing it’s not all the same. We’re not all having the same shared experience.

We might all be on the same side, understanding that feminism is important and something to uphold, but not everyone is experiencing it the same way. There really is white feminism, and then there’s the other. Prioritizing intersectional feminism was probably the key shift that happened for me about a decade ago. For the first 40 years of my life, it was a pretty singular view of what feminism was, and then around 10 years ago, that shifted. I think it’s an ongoing exploration.

Becky Mollenkamp: It sounds like we’re on the same path because 2014 was that big turning point for me—going from the white feminism that had shaped most of my life (and I hadn’t recognized as such) to understanding intersectional feminism and making that journey. It sounds like we have a similar timeframe, which will be interesting because your focus is on imposter syndrome, which you call imposter complex. I read that you started to get into that around 2012, just before this understanding of intersectionality. I’d love to hear how that shift in understanding feminism impacted your work.

But before we get into that, I’d love to know—what brought you to focusing on imposter complex around 2012? What made you decide this was the thing you wanted to dedicate your life to?

Tanya Geisler: No one’s ever asked me that question in quite the same way, and I actually have a concrete answer. I was invited to do a TEDx talk in 2012, and there’s nothing like being handed a mic, a stage, and 20 minutes to distill what you think people really need to hear and understand.

The theme for the TEDx Women Talk that year was “the space in between what is real and what is imagined.” As a coach, I thought, “Well, how long is this piece of string?” So I decided to talk about inner critics and the inner dialogue we experience. Then I realized that was way too big. So I picked the one thread I saw running through everyone’s experience—everyone coming to my work, no matter how successful they were. Whether they’d been on Oprah’s couch or on the Today Show, it didn’t matter. The same experience kept coming up: “It’s just a matter of time before they find out I don’t really know what I’m doing.” And of course, I recognized that in myself, in the different places where I’d “succeeded” but still questioned my actual capacity. 

Becky Mollenkamp: So before that, you were doing more general life coaching, right? And this imposter issue kept coming up a lot. So when you got the TEDx invite to talk about something that fit the theme, was this the thing that called to you? Did you have any idea at the time that it would change the trajectory of your work? You’re really known for this now.

Tanya Geisler: Yeah, I think it must have been at some point. I was sitting at my dining room table with my friend and colleague, Jamie Ridler, a brilliant creative coach, and she helped me land the plane on what became my TEDx talk, which also became this body of work. No matter how many times I try to tear it apart and examine it, it continues to be the structure of what I teach and how I coach. The way it came through so seamlessly gave me an inkling that this was important. I understood it on a cellular level. When you get that kind of clarity, it’s like, “Okay, maybe this is something to pay attention to.” I was so clear about how imposter complex operates. Over the years, I’ve become more thoughtful and done a lot more research, but I knew at the time it was going to be a big deal. It was just so familiar from many different stages of my life.

I’ve shared this before, but I am a reluctant expert on the imposter complex. I say that because I didn’t go looking for this. The way I see the world working, the moment you decide you’re an expert in something, the imposter complex shows up. It gets very meta, and it challenges you—making sure that what you say you understand will be tested. How good are your tools? I don’t particularly enjoy being challenged at every turn by myself on this, but here we are. Sometimes I think it would have been great if I’d decided to become an expert on joy, and then I’d get to experience joy all the time while testing my tools for that. But, yes, I definitely sensed there was something important here.

Becky Mollenkamp: Yeah, and you talk about how nice it would have been if it had been joy. It makes me think of my friend Jordan Maney, who was on season one of the show. She’s a radical joy coach, and I think the thing we end up focusing on is probably the thing we most need to work on ourselves. The reason we do it is because we need our understanding of it to be challenged. Believe me, as a joy coach, she’s not sitting around in joy all the time. She’s constantly being challenged on what joy looks like and what her understanding of it is. So, it wouldn’t matter where you land—you’re going to be challenged on it because you need to be.

I’m excited to get into my complicated relationship with imposter syndrome/complex, but before we dive in, I have one more question on that specific piece: syndrome vs. complex. One of the things that has historically bothered me about this big topic is the framing of it as a “syndrome,” which pathologizes a very normal human emotion, and then very specifically uses that pathology against women. It originated from a study about women and is still used most often with women. That really upsets me. You call it “imposter complex” instead. I’m assuming the pathology piece is part of that decision, but tell me why and when you decided to use “complex” instead of “syndrome.”

Tanya Geisler: From the start, actually. My TEDx talk was titled “Imposter Complex,” largely because of the research I’d done. It was originally called “imposter phenomenon” by clinical psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978. They were working with high-achieving women at Oberlin College and noticed that these women were incapable of internalizing their success, while their failures were all on them.

Syndrome became popular with Valerie Young’s book The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women and Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. But I’ve never felt comfortable with the term “syndrome.” It’s a medical term, and this is not a clinical diagnosis. I’m not a fan of pathologizing or of co-opting medical language. If you know anyone who has a diagnosed syndrome, you understand that language matters. When we use terms like “shiny object syndrome,” it diminishes the significance of the word.

I also quickly saw that if used clumsily, calling it a “syndrome” could pathologize the experience and gaslight women, particularly women of the global majority. So, I started with “complex” instead. I had no idea what Jung would say about that, but it felt more accurate to me. I even had an email exchange with Pauline Clance, who’s still in Atlanta. I was on her radar because apparently not many people cite their teachers—I’m not here for that. Someone had seen my talk and forwarded it to her, and it became part of her body of work. We struck up a relationship, and I told her I didn’t like “phenomenon” and was calling it “complex.” She agreed. We have no idea what Jung would think, but it felt right.

It does piss off my SEO people because most folks are searching for “imposter syndrome,” but we’ve navigated that. For the founders listening, SEO does matter.

Becky Mollenkamp: That’s why I sometimes still say “imposter syndrome”—because it’s shared vocabulary, and people understand it. When I’m talking with folks about it, it’s a whole other journey, because very few people are searching for “talk to me about the systemic issues that affect the way I feel about myself in the workplace.” They’re searching for things like, “Why do I feel like a fraud?” or “Why do I have imposter syndrome?” Sometimes you have to meet them where they are. As Alyssa Hall said in season one, “You’ve got to put the cheese over the broccoli.” Sometimes the cheese is calling it imposter syndrome, but then I’ll give them all that broccoli about the systemic issues. I’m sure you do that as well.

So from the beginning, you were using “imposter complex” and felt that “imposter syndrome” didn’t feel right. But as you mentioned earlier, a few years later, you had more of an awakening about how your feminism wasn’t as intersectional as it is now, which would necessarily affect your work. I think I read in the piece you mentioned, “The 12 Lies of Imposter Syndrome,” where you said that your earlier work may have been a bit reductive in its analysis of imposter complex, and may have bypassed some issues for certain people. You’ve worked with Desiree Adaway, and we’ll talk more about that. Can you go back to that place and tell me what you now see as reductive? How was your earlier understanding more limited than it is now? Because I think this will speak to my issues with the way many people still talk about imposterism.

Tanya Geisler: Yeah, how long is this piece of string? I’m glad we have time because there’s so much to unpack. Honestly, it’s like door one, door two, door three, or door four, and none of this is linear. So, I’ll start with a conversation I had with Desiree. I’d known Desiree since around 2007. I had talked about imposter complex with one of her mastermind groups, and I realized that a lot of the references I was citing were written by white women. That was telling.

I also had multiple experiences on stage, whether speaking to women in engineering or in male-dominated fields. Invariably someone would stand up and say, “This is helpful. I appreciate the framing and the 12 lies.” I often talk about how imposter complex has three main objectives: it wants to keep you out of action, doubting your capacity, and feeling alone and isolated. It manifests in specific behaviors depending on how we’ve been conditioned.

Then someone would say, “But what do you do when you’re being told that you don’t belong here?” I’d hear that and respond, but the answer would boil down to: “That’s not imposter complex or syndrome. You’re dealing with harassment or discrimination.” Over time, I realized that I needed to acknowledge my lens as a white, neurotypical, able-bodied woman of middle-class means living in North America. That’s not everyone’s experience. My job was to flatten the concept of imposter complex so we could see that, while we may not share the same experience, we’re in the same space experiencing it differently based on our identities.

This conversation kept coming up, and eventually, I made specific recommendations for addressing those experiences. These weren’t in the realm of imposter complex but were still important because those kinds of experiences can exacerbate the feeling of not belonging. But being underestimated for your competence is very different from feeling like your competence is overestimated. These are two entirely different experiences. The conversation with Desiree led me to start a limited series podcast called Ready Enough With Tanya Geisler where I invited people from different intersections to share how imposter complex presents for them. I can’t speak to what it feels like with how the imposter complex presents for a trans woman, because I’m not a trans woman. I don’t know how it manifests if you are neurodiverse. I don’t know. So I would bring people in who’d be able to have a line of sight on that, acknowledging that I’m not going to be the right teacher for everyone. And that’s what Ready Enough was. And Ready Enough was, and I think it was in the intro for that, that I’d say, you know, to hammer everything looks like a nail. And so for a really long time, you know, I used to joke and I still, I mean, it’s still, it’s still the truth of it. Do you remember My Big Fat Greek Wedding? The dad in that would talk about how every English word he could make a through line to the Greek language. That was my party trick. I could turn everything. I could turn everything into imposter complex, I could see it absolutely everywhere. I could make some kind of link. That wasn’t helpful. So those are the places that would be reductive. You know, it’s not, we know it’s not helpful to tell people that it’s perfectly safe for you to show up exactly as you are, bring your whole self to work. That’s not helpful. That’s not actually safe for a lot of folks. 

Becky Mollenkamp: Let’s talk about Desiree. I can tell that you love Desiree and I have done some study, some, I have been lucky enough to have learned from her in some spaces that I have been in and she’s awesome. So don’t worry everyone. I’ll link to her in the show notes so you can go and learn more about her. When you say that you are, that she has coached you and she’s helped you with this in deepening this work for yourself. So I hear where you were showing up that hammer nail effect. What did that process, because I know that interim process, which actually isn’t interim because it’s ongoing the rest of your life, you’re going to be unlearning. We all are. But when you first start on that journey, it’s really messy. It’s messy, right? And you’re not ready to apply all of that to your work immediately. That takes time. So what was that messy period like for you? What were you learning from her? How was that affecting how you were thinking about your work? 

One of the first things I learned as a student of Desiree’s work was the Liberatory Consciousness Framework from Barbara J. Love. In my experience, the moment I became aware of something, I wanted to jump straight into action, skipping the analysis part. For example, once I realized that maybe the way I was talking about imposter complex was reductive, I immediately thought, “Okay, I’ll change everything.” But by doing that, I missed the crucial analysis phase.

The analysis part is the messy part, and that’s why people often want to jump into action—to just get it done. According to the Liberatory Consciousness Framework, if you want to change or free yourself from anything, whether it’s imposter complex or something else, you first need awareness, then do your own analysis, take action, and finally, have accountability. Sometimes, action and accountability might overlap, but it’s important not to skip analysis.

This framework was originally applied to racial justice, but I realized it works for almost everything. Before I take action, I now ask myself, “What am I going to do?” That’s where the idea for Ready Enough came from. It was a reminder to myself: “Hey, Geisler, you’re going to mess up. You’re going to say the wrong thing, and that’s okay. You know how to make repairs.”

If I waited until I was perfectly ready (which is a characteristic of white supremacy culture—perfectionism being the first), I’d never do anything. But on the other hand, it’s not helpful to swing to the other extreme of saying, “I’m just going to get it wrong and that’s fine.” There’s a balance to be struck between perfectionism and recklessness.

Ready Enough was an invitation to embrace the messiness of getting it wrong. I knew my heart would be in my throat during those interviews because I’d probably get something wrong—and I most certainly did. But that’s part of the messy process of learning and growing.

Becky Mollenkamp: I learned about the liberatory consciousness framework from Desiree as well, and it’s so valuable. And then I think later from Toi Marie Smith, who was on the first season of this podcast too, who deepened some of my understanding around that. And I think it is such a beautiful framework because it speaks exactly to what we’re talking about. What I’m trying to point out is that messy piece that is so uncomfortable because I would imagine, even from the way I see that you’ve kind of read about this, about like, I recognize that I may have been reductive and all that. Like I can feel in that some of that tension of more than likely having been called in, maybe by Desiree, maybe by others, and this feeling of like, God, I got it wrong. Or I just didn’t have it. I didn’t have as broad of an understanding as that maybe I needed. Right. And that can feel so painful for those of us who hold privileged identities to say, I messed up. And when we do that immediate defensiveness of like, either I deny it, right, or, well, then I’m just going to I’m just going to do everything right now and fix it. And there is that middle part is just so, so important. And to me is a real indicator of somebody who’s actually committed to doing the work. And so I love that you shared that. So then how did your, how has your work evolved? We’ve talked a lot about, you know, kind of where you were showing up before sort of that 2014 ish time and the sort of messy middle of analyzing it and hearing from other voices. What’s different now when you look back a decade later how you’re showing up? What’s different the way you’re talking about these issues? 

Tanya Geisler: I would just say that it’s just deepened in with just a broader understanding. I have an epic post I’ve been working on forever, where I outline things I used to say but don’t anymore, and things I wish I’d never said. For example, I used to say, “Bring your whole self to work,” but that’s not safe for a lot of people. I also used to talk about “playing bigger,” but that’s not always appropriate for everyone.

One big shift is in how I talk about the six coping mechanisms of imposter complex: perfectionism, procrastination, diminishment, comparison, people-pleasing, and leaky boundaries. For example, diminishment might be a survival strategy for someone who’s been systemically excluded. People-pleasing might be a tool for safety. So, making these behaviors “wrong” across the board isn’t helpful. Instead, I now talk about the values underlying these behaviors: people-pleasers value inclusivity, perfectionists value excellence, and so on.

I want to live in a world where our leaders prioritize excellence and humility, and inclusivity and to be certain. And then also the place where I want to stop gaslighting ourselves,generosity. And so that is definitely something that I have spent a lot more time focusing on to be certain. And then also the place where I want to stop gaslighting ourselves. The self -development space is a $42 billion industry. That’s a metric ton of money invested in making people feel like shit about themselves. So I’m super interested in not doing that. Even as I, of course, I understand that I’m very much a part of the self -development industry, right? Both-and.

Becky Mollenkamp: You just hit the nail on the head. Can I quickly say that one of the things I had written down here was talking about the idea of avoidance versus staying safe, because I saw you mention that. To me, that is such a key piece of this understanding. And what I think it boils down to is the both/and. What I’m hearing is that the reductive part—where you may have felt like you were or where many people still remain—is what lacks nuance. It lacks that deeper understanding of how sometimes it’s both.

Everything doesn’t have to be either/or. It’s not like you’re either a perfectionist or you’re not, or you’re not letting systemic things hold you down. It can be both. It can be that you care about excellence and that systemic issues are at play, or that white supremacy is at play. It can be both things. What I hear from you is this deepening of allowing more nuance into your work, which, by the way, ties back to SEO. SEO doesn’t allow for nuance. It’s either/or, black or white, this or that. And that’s what’s so complicated for so many of us trying to do work from a more liberatory perspective. Once you start doing that, it becomes much more nuanced, and it is harder to talk about. It’s harder to get people to understand in a sound bite, to make an SEO search term. So, have you found that as well? It sounds like it, based on what you’ve said about SEO.

Tanya Geisler: Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding! This either/or mentality is also one of the characteristics of white supremacy culture, which, by the way, is also a bit problematic because you get a lot of people saying, “I’m going to divest from perfectionism, so I’m not going to qualify what I’m saying anymore,” and it’s always in the either/or framework, because that’s the way supremacy culture works. And I also think, Lord, can we have more nuance?

Becky Mollenkamp: And can I quickly mention Tema Okun? Her name has come up on this podcast many times when we talk about white supremacy culture. I’ll link to her in the show notes, just to mention the people who’ve taught us. I just wanted to point her out.

Tanya Geisler: Yes, thank you, thank you, thank you. I appreciate that because I’m not sure I’ve ever pronounced Okun correctly. I think I’ve said Tema Okun. So thank you for that!

Becky Mollenkamp: I could also be wrong! Just to preface that, this is my understanding of how to pronounce it. I could be wrong. So, Tema, if you’re listening, I apologize if I got it wrong.

Tanya Geisler: And thank you for your work. We appreciate it. I went through those characteristics of white supremacy culture—there are 13, I believe—and again, I could tie most of them back to imposter complex in some way, shape, or form. Because I look at imposter complex as yet another way of suppressing people, their brilliance, and their capacity. I’ve been talking about this on stage for a while, and I’ve been having one-on-one sessions with people about it. But now I’m really thinking that we need to call this what it really is: “Trailblazer Complex.” This experience shows up on the precipice of expansion—something new, something exciting, something that hasn’t been done before, something that doesn’t necessarily have a blueprint. And so, because someone like you hasn’t done this thing before, you’re thinking, “Can I do this? Am I allowed to do this? Am I good enough to do this? Am I ready enough to do this?”

That’s really what the trailblazer complex is. That’s what the trailblazer is experiencing. So, we’ve gone from imposter syndrome to imposter complex, and now I’m trying to work with this trailblazer complex, which is much more resonant for folks. But there’s also been so much in the zeitgeist—so many important pieces have been written about this. Like “Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome” in Harvard Business Review—brilliant piece. There was something in The New Yorker last year—was it The New Yorker or The New York Times? We’ll link to that too. I did a response piece because we’ve gone too far the other way, saying “It’s total bullshit; let’s tear it down; it doesn’t exist at all.” And I feel like that is also my perspective is that’s not helpful.

It’s a bit like saying, “If I identify with feeling like an imposter, if I feel like a fraud and I want to address that, that’s mine to look at.” Now, if I’m talking to somebody and my superior says, you know, you aren’t raising your hand in meetings, I’m pointing very specifically to be really super obnoxious and be like that guy, but you are experiencing imposter complex, that’s your problem. You need to fit, you need to deal with it. That gets me ragey. That feels like saying, “You’re cranky because you have PMS.” Just because I don’t have PMS right now doesn’t mean PMS doesn’t exist. I’m peri -menopausal. So this is up for me a fair bit. That is a perspective that I hold because I’ve seen enough people that have this experience of no matter how successful they are, they will chalk their, their, their success up to luck, fluke, timing or having somehow managed to convince people they’re smarter, more capable than they actually were. I think that saying it like, it’s not a thing at all is also not super helpful. That gets to be like, that’s yours. If you want to address that, that gets to be yours. But to have somebody turn around and say that this is your problem, that’s the problem.

Becky Mollenkamp: Well, okay, this is great. I’ve been more in line with that Harvard Business Review piece. I’ll link to it, and I’ll also link to the response you wrote because I read it, and it was really great. I tend to lean more towards thinking this isn’t a thing and that we’re making it a thing against a particular group of people—basically, non-men, non-white folks—by saying, “This very real problem you’re having is a you problem instead of a systems problem.” So, I agree with you, the issues exist. The framing of it, for me, is the problem. It becomes a “you” problem, taking our eyes off the fact that no, it’s actually a huge systemic problem that needs to fucking change.

People feel out of place inside these spaces not because there’s something wrong with them, but because these spaces weren’t built for them. Often, they’re actively being excluded. The framing of it has always been the issue for me. But what you just said about trailblazer complex—boy, Tanya, you’re onto something. I sure hope, much to your SEO people’s chagrin again, that you say, “Fuck it, I’m changing it all.” Because what I love about that, and what has always bothered me about imposter phenomenon, syndrome, or even complex, is the word “imposter.” It feels like it’s putting the onus back on me—like, I’m the problem, I’m the imposter.

Trailblazer feels very different. Now it feels like it’s your problem—you can’t handle me. You can’t handle that I’m here, leading the way, pushing the edges, being something different. That feels so much more empowering and truthful to what’s actually happening. It’s not the individual’s problem; it’s the system they’re trying to exist within. That’s the problem. I fucking love it, and I can tell you want to say something.

Tanya Geisler: Yes, and, for me, because that’s very clear inside institutions and organizations. But what happens in those moments where nobody’s watching, where the experience of feeling like an imposter shows up in your parenting, or in places outside of systems, structures, or institutions?

Because I think it’s clear when someone says, “I’m not feeling this; I’m being told I’m supposed to feel this.” I’m not talking to that person—they’re being gaslit. I’m talking about the person who feels like, no matter how successful they are, nobody’s telling them anything different. It’s an internal experience, showing up in their parenting, or crafting, or in any space theoretically designed for them. But inside institutions, it’s very clear. This experience can show up across all facets of life, and that’s what I really want to look at. I may be an executive coach or leadership coach, but at my core, I’m still a life coach.

So, what are the places where you want more, but aren’t allowing yourself to have that experience? Unlike the woman at the end of my talks who asks, “What happens when someone tells you that you don’t belong here?”—that’s not imposter complex.

Becky Mollenkamp: This is just me thinking aloud—not saying you’re wrong, because I love what you’re saying. What comes up for me, though, is that I do have that experience of being a parent and feeling like I can never get it right. Why does it seem like other moms are figuring it out better than I am? All of that stuff. My reaction to that is there are still systems at play. It’s not a corporate structure, but there are still systems—sexism, misogyny. And for women of color, there are additional overlapping systems.

As a queer woman, there are those issues too. There are bigger systems at play—they may not be like a corporate structure or a government targeting me specifically, but I still exist within this larger system of white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy that, I believe, is designed to make me feel less than in all ways. Parenting feels like one more space where, just existing as a woman in the world—forget about paramenopause or aging—I wonder why I feel like every other woman is doing it better.

Why can’t I figure it out? Why can’t I look like her, or show up with the confidence she does? I feel like there are systems at play here. The big system wants me to feel small and to not feel like I’m doing a good job. That’s the point, right? We can’t maintain this hierarchy unless we feel shitty. So, I hear you, but I still think there are systems involved. How do you balance that in your work?

We’re all trying to change these systemic issues, but we can’t do it directly right now. We have to focus on what we can change—how we exist within these systems, how we feel about ourselves within them, and what we allow those systems to make us think about ourselves. How do you balance that? The personal development space, which is expensive and tends to focus only on the “you” part, falls short if we don’t talk about how the “you” exists inside these bigger systems.

Tanya Geisler: One of the first things I name—thinking of my work structured like a keynote—is the arc of what I want people to understand. I usually start with why I care about this and why it matters to me. I often say, “We’re in a mess, a big old mess, and we need to start having harder conversations.” But it’s really hard to have those conversations when we can barely talk about the things that live in the wheelhouse of our excellence.

If I can’t even talk about my work or feel good about my contributions, how am I going to have the courage to say what needs to be said at the dinner table? For me, it’s the same process, whether it’s deciding what’s yours to change or what’s not. Looking at what’s keeping you out of action—whether it’s internal dialogue, an actual person in the way, or an inner critic—gives you a fighting chance to get back into action. Building proof points of what we’ve healed, survived, and overcome helps us understand our capacity. Being surrounded by people who challenge us and offer critique is important, as is having people who are deeply supportive—a soft place to land.

This process is the same whether I’m having a challenging conversation at home, at work, or in my parenting. It’s about having the internal resources to decide what’s yours and what’s not. Nine times out of ten, when I talk to people inside organizations, they’ve taken it as far as they can. I bow to Naomi Hattaway’s work on leaving well. How do you leave well? What do you pack in your own bag before you go somewhere else? If you’ve done what you need to do, sometimes it’s time to just go.

Becky Mollenkamp: Both/and again. There are two more things I want to make sure we talk about with the time we have left. The first is about faking it till you make it. That’s something we hear a lot, and you’ve mentioned that isn’t it—that’s not what we need to be doing. So, what are your thoughts on the concept of faking it till you make it?

Tanya Geisler: Yep. I bow to Janelle Allen, who was the penultimate guest on my Ready Enough series. We were talking about this because, for me, at a baseline, I understand why someone would want to borrow against a future version of their confidence, but I always feel like you’ve already done enough to be where you are. You’ve done enough to lead the team, hold the baby. No one is ever fully ready for anything, right? So I prefer leaning into or fully investing in an understanding of your capacity, skills, talents, values, and excellence—and rooting back into proof of that.

That, to me, feels much more affirming. Then Janelle brought up that “fake it till you make it” is actually a deeply privileged perspective—who gets to fake it? Who gets to have that level of grace? And that’s not everyone. That insight stuck with me. Every time I hear “fake it till you make it,” I think about how it’s a privileged perspective. Not everyone gets to do that.

Becky Mollenkamp: So much of what’s in the personal development space is built on privileged perspectives. The last piece, which I think ties to faking it till you make it, is this feeling inside imposter complex of, “When are they all going to figure out I don’t know what I’m doing?” A lot of people I talk to about this issue convince themselves that they don’t know enough yet, that they need more education or experience before they can be taken seriously or even take themselves seriously. How do you help people discern where that’s actually true versus when it’s just imposter complex showing up? How can they tell if there’s an actual deficiency to shore up versus their brain trying to keep them quiet and small?

Tanya Geisler: There are 12 lies of the imposter complex, but the one truth is that there’s always room for more—more improvement, more growth. You’re never going to be perfectly ready, because perfection is a hungry ghost that’s never satisfied. The real question is: Are you ready enough? That’s a moving target too. The moment you decide you’re ready enough is the moment you’re ready—and you might make mistakes, but are you ready to make repairs?

There’s always room for version 2.0. We’re trying to mitigate risk, which is understandable. We all want to avoid risk, especially if we’ve faced harm in the past. You’re allowed to be hypervigilant, trust me. And yet, there’s something you really want to do, and no one is going to tap you in. Your own metric of readiness has to matter here. There’s no magical moment. I think it’s the moment you decide, which is as old as time.

I also had this flash where procrastination kicks in because we do something when we’ve run out of time, right? The consequence of not doing it becomes too great. So, deadlines can help create accountability. There’s a TEDx talk by someone with the last name Urban (I can’t recall the first name) about procrastination, and he talks about the “Sunday Syndrome.” There’s someone listening right now who has something they really want to do but are waiting to be ready.

No one’s going to tap you in. You’re ready when you say so. You’re not going to be perfectly ready, and you’ll get some things wrong. But there’s room for version 2.0, and I hope it’s something that really matters to you, something important that hasn’t been done before—and it’s yours to do.

Becky Mollenkamp: It’s so nuanced, isn’t it? That advice—no one’s going to tell you when it’s time, and you might not feel ready, but you are—can sound a bit like “fake it till you make it,” but it’s not quite the same. It’s very challenging.

Tanya Geisler: The moment I tell myself I have to fake it, I’m going to feel like a fake. Instead, I’m saying let’s root into what’s actually true about your capacity and what you’ve already built. Bishop T.D. Jakes says, “Your ministry is where your misery has been,” and I believe that’s true. If you see that something is missing or lacking, I highly suggest not telling yourself that you need to fake it. Because that’s just going to collude with the imposter experience. You wouldn’t be at this precipice if you hadn’t done enough due diligence—if you hadn’t dotted enough i’s and crossed the t’s. I actually bought the URL “dotted t’s and crossed i’s” because I get it wrong all the time. If I can get that wrong, I will!

Becky Mollenkamp: I think so many of us can relate. That idea of “your ministry is where your misery has been” feels like it connects back to the beginning of this episode—when we talked about why you aren’t focusing on joy. It sounds like maybe that’s where the trailblazer complex comes in, which I’m going to start forcing you to use! I’ll use it on your behalf and credit you. Because this is where your misery may have been, and that’s what gives you the understanding.

I feel like you’re being a trailblazer in talking about these issues this way, which is probably why it feels challenging sometimes. That’s why I’m so glad to have you on. As I’ve said multiple times, I have a very complicated relationship as a coach with the concept of imposter syndrome, complex, phenomenon—whatever you want to call it. For a lot of reasons. Once I had my own intersectional awakening, suddenly everything about this concept felt wrong. And I wanted to have you on because I feel like you’re a trailblazer in this area, bringing a much-needed understanding and nuance to these conversations. So, thank you for that.

Tanya Geisler: Thank you, thank you. I really appreciate that. I have two quick things. First, I didn’t want to sound like a jerk by quoting this, but in my spaces, I always credit Bishop T.D. Jakes and say, “Your ministry is where your misery has been.” But I also add, “And also your joy.” I think that gets to be part of it too. I worry that people might think, “Have I experienced enough misery to be able to contribute?”

The second thing is, when all is said and done, these systems we’re talking about have been in place for thousands of years. If we don’t have the tenacity and resilience in our understanding of our own power, it’s going to be really hard to tear these systems down brick by gilded brick. We need a sense of our internal fortitude—what makes us who we are. We need to be able to talk about what’s in the wheelhouse of our excellence because that’s a place we can drop into. So, I’m interested in that. But thank you so much for this invitation. I really appreciate it.

Becky Mollenkamp: The last two things I want to ask are: first, can you share a resource, something that would be a great place for people to start in their understanding of imposter complex or trailblazer complex?

Tanya Geisler: Well, honestly, Black Women Thriving by Every Level Leads is a report that’s really important if you want a deeper understanding, especially for white women listening. It was created by Erica Hines, who’s a dear friend of Desiree Adaway. It’s a really important report to pay attention to. In terms of imposter complex work, I think the Harvard Business Review and The New Yorker pieces really speak to the nuanced conversation, but beyond that, there aren’t many other resources I often point people to for a deeper understanding of imposter complex.

Becky Mollenkamp: That’s great, and I’ll include your responses to those articles because I think they’re really helpful and wonderful. Lastly, is there an organization doing good work in the world that you’d like to highlight?

Tanya Geisler: Every Level Leads and Black Women Thriving—that’s a really important study.

Becky Mollenkamp: Thank you so much for doing this. For our bonus conversation for Feminist Founders subscribers (links in the show notes), I’d love to talk to you about coaches hiring coaches. You worked with Desiree Attaway, and I’d love to talk about how you know when you need a coach, how to find one, and how they can help. I think people find it interesting to hear that, yes, coaches also get coaches. We’ll talk about that in the bonus conversation, so make sure you listen.

Tanya Geisler: Absolutely, my goodness, yeah.

Becky Mollenkamp: Thank you so much, Tanya. The links to you and everything will be in the show notes. I loved this conversation.

Tanya Geisler: Thank you so much, Becky.