Women Like Me Stories & Business

Tanya Ruckstuhl - The Art of Being Human Without Being an Asshole

• Episode 127

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Ever wondered why some people seem determined to be right at all costs? According to therapist Tanya Ruckstuhl, this behaviour stems from "tremendous insecurity and fragility." When we don't feel worthy enough, we inflate ourselves with arrogance as a protective mechanism.

Tanya brings twenty years of clinical experience and a fascinating multicultural background to this conversation about authentic human connection. Growing up between Jamaica and El Salvador during its civil war gave her unique insights into how people interpret each other across differences—skills desperately needed in today's polarized society.

Her provocatively titled book "How to Be Human and Not an Asshole" addresses what she calls our "crisis of capacity to connect," offering practical wisdom for replacing judgment with curiosity. With refreshing candor, she explains how we can maintain our own boundaries while creating space for others to be their authentic selves.

The conversation takes a particularly illuminating turn when discussing relationship dynamics. Beneath surface-level "communication issues," Tanya reveals that most couples are actually grappling with fears about unmet emotional needs. She offers practical guidance for partners to recognize the different but equally valuable gifts each brings to the relationship, reminding us that "equality is not identical."

For women specifically, Tanya provides actionable advice for breaking cycles of unhealthy relationships and learning to make appropriate demands of partners. Her perspective on social connection—that we should cultivate different friendships for different facets of our personality rather than relying solely on romantic partners—offers a refreshing alternative to codependency.

Whether you're struggling with difficult relationships, seeking to understand those who think differently, or simply wanting to be more fully human, Tanya's blend of professional expertise and personal warmth offers valuable insights for navigating life's complex connections.

My book link is: https://amzn.to/4jQockG

My blog is SeattleTherapist.Wordpress.com

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Who is Julie Fairhurst?
Julie Fairhurst – Speaker, Author, and Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a champion for women’s empowerment and the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program. Since 2019, she has published 30 books and 300+ true-life stories—at no cost to the writers—giving women a platform to heal, inspire, and reclaim their power. Dedicated to breaking generational trauma one story at a time, Julie’s mission is to uplift women emotionally and financially, helping them create better lives for themselves and their families.


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Speaker 1:

Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Women Like Me Stories in Business. I'm your host, julie Fairhurst, and I have a very interesting lady here with us today, so let me tell you a little bit about her and then we'll see what else she's got to share. So today we're joined with Tanya Ruckstuhl, a seasoned licensed independent clinical social worker based in Seattle. She has a master's in social work from the University of Kansas with over two decades of experience, so she's going to have she should be able to answer all our questions. Tanya specializes in treating anxiety disorder, trauma and adult ADHD. Beyond her clinical practice this is the interesting part that I find Tanya is the author of how to Be Human and Not an Asshole. Okay, I can think of a whole bunch of people that I want to buy this book for and give it to them. I love the title, so welcome, tanya. Thank you so much for being here.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, julie. It's so wonderful to be on your podcast and to be connecting with you and, through you, to your listeners, oh thank you.

Speaker 1:

So why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Speaker 2:

Sure.

Speaker 2:

So I am the product of an American mother and an immigrant father, and I spent my first five years of life first in Kingston, jamaica, and then in San Salvador, el Salvador, right in time for the Civil War, and so I would like to say that I have an orientation and an outlook that's not specific to Americans and is probably pretty well informed by the cultural mashup of my early life and then my subsequent childhood, moving all over the place, and I'm very specifically curious and interested in how do people connect and how do they interpret each other, and I feel like right now we're in a crisis of capacity to connect, particularly in this country and I think Canada is having its own political challenges as well but particularly in this country, there's a lot of belief that those who don't think like me are stupid, and I wrote this book in part because I'm trying to encourage generosity of interpretation and replacing panic with curiosity and just sort of instilling some values around, not polarizing our perspectives.

Speaker 2:

And I see this happening not just politically but on all kinds of other levels as well, and I think there could be some connections to COVID and the lockdown and the social isolation and lack of practice that people went through for a period of time as well as just again we're in a political situation here in the States where there's a tremendous amount of panic around changes that are happening, and when we're scared, we human beings do not do our best.

Speaker 1:

Well, and we have just gone through that in Canada we had an election the other day and it was quite the fight, and so you know a lot of the, a lot of the people were voting one way for fear and then even voting the other way for a different kind of fear. So I totally get what you're saying. Yeah, we're a bunch of this North American business. We're all living in fear over here.

Speaker 2:

It's really true and the advantage that I have with my background is that I don't idealize other cultures. You know I hear a lot of sentiment in this country about oh you know, late stage capitalism and you know this, that the other and I just want to tell Americans, like, please go and spend time in a developing country and then make a decision about what we do or don't have in this country, because we are we human beings are easily frightened and we easily catastrophize and the news is like fodder for for catastrophic thinking, and catastrophic thinking is exactly the opposite of mental health. About how do I calm myself down so that I can respond to what is true in the world and not what my imagination or the imagination of other people can construe or come up with. That is designed to like keep us riveted to our phones or to our screens and and always clicking for more, more, more, more wow, well, thank you for that, because I think we needed to hear that.

Speaker 1:

I needed to hear that. So thank you for that. Tanya, thank you. Can I just jump in and and cause I really want to talk about your book for a minute. As you can see, I I'm the book girl over here, but what I want to know, what inspired you to write how to Be Human and Not an Asshole? I just love that title, Love it.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, I would love to take credit for the title. I had a much more sort of professional sounding and boring title and one of my friends who's quite cut through it, was like that's a terrible title, you should call it this. And I was like, yes, I will take that, that's perfect.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

So what inspired me is so much of my individual therapy sessions are focused around relationships that my clients are having out in the world, and so they bring in naturally into therapy interactions they're having that are hurting their hearts, where they're feeling unheard or where they're feeling oppressed. And sometimes there are what I call interpretation errors where somebody will think, oh, I'm being really mistreated, but from another perspective, it's actually not about you at all. It's about what that other person might have going on in their life that could be informing their capacity to show up going on in their life. That could be informing their capacity to show up in a less than pleasant way. And so I just thought, you know, there's some basic rules for how to engage with other people that tend to lead to greater connection and greater durability of connection.

Speaker 2:

And so this book is like a series of essays around like that, that topic how do we connect, how do we hold space for others while also protecting the boundaries and the needs that we individually have? Because so often what we do is we either get too big and then inadvertently, we squish the people around us or, for women in particular, we stay small in order to accommodate and to people please and to be acceptable and to be loved, and then what happens is we're no longer actually telling the truth about who we are and the other person might have a lot of space, but it is at the expense of our ability to say yeah. That doesn't actually work for me. So my book is about like, what is the ratio of you, what is the ratio of other people, and how do we really hold an equal sign between my sense of self and my belief in your right to have a sense of self where I'm not dominating and I'm also not submitting?

Speaker 1:

Right. I love that. If we could all just live in that space, we'd all get along a lot better for sure right, and then the differences become interesting.

Speaker 2:

They're not threatening because differences are not actually going to, like you know, uh, consume and swallow you. Yes, differences are more like oh, this is the hot sauce. Like you know, I have a uh have some relatives who have very strong religious opinions that I don't share whatsoever, but I appreciate that they derive great strength and meaning and family values from their religious belief system and I don't have to reject them because I'm not going to be infected by their beliefs. Right, it's like they get to have this belief of reality and I get to have this belief of reality, and it's not the same. But I'm not scared that they think differently than I do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's, it's just a matter of respect.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and I think also safety. It's like, I think we become fragile and we become reactive when we feel like we're not allowed to say I see it differently.

Speaker 1:

Right, right, exactly, wow, very, very interesting. Okay, so we'll get off your book and let's move on to your therapeutic approach. So I'm curious how do you determine what kind of approach you're going to use would best suit a?

Speaker 2:

client? Oh, that's such a lovely question and I wish I had a straightforward answer. What I can say is I consider myself therapeutically eclectic. I've been around the block long enough that I've been trained, or even, let's say, say indoctrinated in different therapeutic approaches, and all of them have aspects that I like. But there's no one approach to reality that is going to be, you know, 360 degrees of clickable and a fit. So I like to first of all ask my clients oftentimes they come into therapy with a history that includes receiving therapy. So if there's approaches that have been particularly useful or particularly problematic for them, I want to know both of those stories. But what I would say all of my approaches have in common is a humanistic belief in the movement of our spirit towards healing, that we are here in earth school to experience lots and lots of different kinds of experiences. You know difficulty and triumph, and joy and loss, and love and anger and all of the things, and I only want to operate from a paradigm that holds hope in its core.

Speaker 1:

What about the differences between males and females? So is there a different counseling or therapeutic approach that you would use men versus women?

Speaker 2:

I love that question and what I would say is you know, we're all I believe we are all lens of masculine and feminine energy, so to me it's not so much men versus women, but it's like we're on the spectrum, a person's sort of primary energetic setting is. So I have clients who are sort of more masculine women or more feminine men, and I would say, with my more masculine women or my more traditionally male male clients I can be a little bit more kind of direct and even, and even sometimes like using humor in a sharp way, whereas if I'm working with somebody who's sort of more classically feminine, I actually have to soften a lot, because my orientation is I'm sarcastic and I, you know, swear in sessions and you know I tend to be sort of um, uh, kind of kind of a little goofy, and so for some people I have to soften my style in order to actually be able to meet them where they need to be met emotionally. And then with other clients I can just like let it rip yeah and be irreverent.

Speaker 2:

And you know, you know I think that's a bunch of bullshit.

Speaker 1:

You know, I think you're lying to yourself about that Well, and so you must be able to read people fairly well then, especially all.

Speaker 2:

I've made some mistakes, I will tell you. Yeah, well, once in a while I'll get feedback that I hurt somebody's feelings or you know, and that's actually really brave when my client says to me hey, you said something to me last time we met and I've thought about it and I don't like this aspect of it. Like I always really give people praise when they come back and criticize me, because it takes a tremendous amount of courage on their part and it helps me, as a therapist, be kind of more round in my understanding of reality.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and you're right. It must be very courageous of them to do that, and I would think too that that good for them, because they're taking control of their healing.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, absolutely. And part of what therapy is is therapy is a practice space. So in therapy people get to practice with their therapist standing up for themselves, being assertive, talking back, disagreeing all of the skills they actually need to have, like in the wild. They should be able to practice with their therapist.

Speaker 1:

Right, of course. Wow, that's really good, that's good, that's a good thing, okay, so in your well, we've talked a little about humor, but let's talk about it again. So, in your view, what role does humor play in the healing process?

Speaker 2:

Oh, my goodness. So there's a expression that honey helps the medicine go down, and I think that you could replace the word honey with humor. I mean, I just feel like you know, if we can laugh or we can dance, or we can move or we can in some way be embodied together and have our hearts touched, then then we can um, receive information in a way that's so much less defended. So I rely on humor a lot and, in fact, uh, one of the one of my personal life experiences is I'm married to a man who is much funnier than me, and it kind of kicks my butt.

Speaker 2:

It is a challenge to my ego that my husband is like a thousand times funnier than I am, and I watch him in his life and in his work, his work and he can interact with people in a in a much more um, um, what, what am I going to try to say here? He can interact with people in a way that I would experience as too sharp and pointed, but because they're laughing and he entertains them, it's like it's okay, right, he can sort of get away with a lot, and so I've adopted some of that into my therapy practice. It's different. He's a salesman, I'm a therapist, and so these are not the same things. But what I can do is observe and respect that his relationship with humor gives him entry into people's capacity to reflect on. Am I behaving in a way that is absurd right now? And I think humor is a great way to kind of elevate awareness.

Speaker 1:

And salespeople, because I was one for 34 years. I retired last year, Thank you. So salespeople, though, also have to be able to read people. Yes, and be able to adjust their behavior, adjust their tone, everything so good for him to be able to. You know you make people feel good. They remember that.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's great, that's great, okay, so. So now let's talk a little bit about couples, because you do do couple therapy.

Speaker 2:

So I'm curious.

Speaker 1:

What's one of the most common reasons that brings them in to see you? I'm very curious about this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So what I would say? The reported reason is often communication issues, where couples will say we're having problems communicating with each other and their experiences, that they get into these ritual fights again and again, and again, and I think that that's incredibly common. But I, but I would say that underneath the communication issues, it's the fear of unmet emotional needs. Underneath the communication issues, both parties are saying my needs don't feel important in my imagination, to you and so much of couples therapy is teaching us how to move out of just the practicality of you know you're on first, I'm on second, you're on dinner, I'm on dishes. You know you're taking the kids to soccer, I'm taking the kids to play date.

Speaker 2:

And moving into, what do each of us bring into our adult relationship that has to do with our childhood wounds that make us particularly sensitive in these different areas where we each have to have our antenna way out. Somebody, for instance, with a history of childhood abuse, has to have a partner who understands to not yell, to not raise their voice, right, because the expression of anger often precedes physical abuse, right? So there's a certain amount of constraining that both parties have to be willing to sign up for to make a long lasting relationship work, because we all have our wounds and having those conversations about. You know, I come from this history and this makes me particularly sensitive to this dynamic, and I want you, my partner, to have all the freedom to have your feelings. But this is an area where I'm asking you to talk about your needs in a way that doesn't include X or Y.

Speaker 1:

Right. What about the need to be right?

Speaker 2:

Oh, my goodness, so there's a joke in the therapy world is exactly right, which is you can either be right or you can be married pick that's true, that's true, I just so true yeah.

Speaker 1:

I find that um, uh, um recent, well, not recently, about a year ago, uh, I was living, my husband and I we recently sold our house and moved and moved, and we were living in a strata. And there was a lady living in this strata and she would get on our community page and it didn't matter what you said. And so I remember and I normally don't get into issues with people, but she was irritating me so much and and I finally said to her OK, you're right, you can be right, whatever, If you guess what I bet you didn't do, I bet you didn't invite her over to have a cup of coffee.

Speaker 1:

Probably not. No, oh, my goodness, so she got to be right and alone. That's the deal. If you're somebody who has to be right.

Speaker 2:

there's no space for other people. That's again like making the energy super big squishes everybody around you, ah yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I felt bad for her. Yeah, you know I did, and she was in conflict with everybody, totally.

Speaker 1:

And I just thought like, like how can you walk? How can you even walk around? And I mean, I'd be driving like this if I was in conflict, I don't know, like just a sad place to be. And I've got to. You know, I know a few other folks that have a strong need to be right, and I don't know if that's just I'm not a therapist so I don't know but is that just like a need for acceptance, like what would that? What would cause someone to have such a strong need to be right?

Speaker 2:

Tremendous insecurity and fragility. So one of the ways you can think of the need to be right. It's like when you cut yourself and then you get inflammation, when the inflammation is your body's way of padding the wound. I think that what happens is when you don't feel like you are an important being, when you don't feel like you're good enough, smart enough, enough enough just on your own, you have to inflame yourself with this tremendous arrogance, and so I think of the need to be right as as really evidence of fragility and insecurity.

Speaker 1:

And do you see that much in marriage issues?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, usually what happens is we diversify our survival strategies. So one person with a lot of emotional intelligence will marry one person with a lot of practical capacity and that's organismically a really good diversification of strategy. So there's one person who's like I'm watching our financial portfolio and this is the plan around, you know, getting the house pressure washed and we need to get to the dentist and the car needs the oil changed. And then there's another person who says hey, I noticed that our neighbor looked really sad and his cat just died. We're going to bring some cookies over. Really sad and his cat just died, we're going to bring some cookies over. And what happens is that's all well and good as both, as long as both parties recognize and respect that they bring different gifts into the, into the connection.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Problems occur when one person feels like they're more important because they have different gifts, and much of couples therapy is enhancing the awareness of the equality is not identical. Quality is is um pixelated. Quality is little bits in different areas.

Speaker 1:

That's what equal is tanny, could you give us I mean our, my audience is is 99 female, and so can you give a little. Just, I know that they're not in therapy, we're not in therapy right now, but is there a tip you can give someone that might be struggling out there in relationships that you know, just that they can maybe take from our conversation today and maybe put it to some use to help their relationship along the way? I don't know if there's, I mean, I know there's no easy fixes, but what could you offer them?

Speaker 2:

I love that question. So I think one of the things I could offer is ask yourself if you have had this experience before with other partners and in your family of origin, and that gives you two answers. One is the possibility that if the common denominator is you this is your emotional work to do you get yourself in therapy, you get support, you get a sounding board separate from your partner. The other thing is, if the answer is yes and you continually find yourself picking men who put you down, who disrespect you, who cheat on you, you are enacting a self-abusive cycle. And again the answer would be get some help, get some support. So if you're in a high level of relationship distress, I would say ask yourself the question have I felt this way before? And the other thing is, I want people to know, I want women to know, we are allowed to make work demands of our relationship, and a work demand includes things like saying, hey, we're getting into the cycle of conflict again and again and again. I want us to get help. And if people can't afford therapy, it doesn't have to be therapy.

Speaker 2:

You could go to the library together and check out a book on relationship skills and you could journal together about questions in the book. You could read to each other chapters out of a book. You could listen to podcasts about relationship skills and communication. There's a wonderful podcast out called what Healthy Couples Know that you Don't, which is led by.

Speaker 2:

I can't remember her name, but she is a couples therapist and she has a very interesting voice. And I say that because I tried at one point to get my husband to listen to this podcast with me and he's like I don't like her voice and I'm like that's maybe the dumbest reason in the world to not like a podcast, but he's very auditory oriented, so for him it's like that's a deal breaker. But my point is there are a million ways to open yourselves up, to say we want to learn skills, and relationship skills are not talents, they're not inborn things. Relationship skills are skills, which means we can learn them, just like you can learn how to cook, just like you can learn how to change your oil, just like you can learn how to paint a wall. These are all things that you can say hey, if I'm feeling like I'm not really selling in this area, how can I develop more?

Speaker 1:

skills. Right, that's, that's great advice, absolutely great advice it's, and you're right, because not everyone wants counseling or can afford it. But you're right, there's help all over the place. They just you can seek it out. And, yeah, for sure, no great advice. Thank you for that. So how do you maintain your own wellbeing while supporting others through their healing journey, because it must be stressful sometimes.

Speaker 2:

I love that question. So I have. I have kind of a few different things I do. One is I have a really rich social life, so I spend a lot of time with friends. I'm physically active every single day, so it could be something a little like going for a half an hour walk, or it can be something sort of more strenuous I dance, my husband and I are learning pickleball, which is kind of a blast, and then we have dogs that we walk all the time, and so I try to be physically active because I feel like exercise is the best reset for our cortisol levels in our brain and in our body.

Speaker 2:

And then I have a rich social life, because one person can never meet all of our needs, and this is one of the things that I write about in the book. That is more endemic as a problem for men than it is for women. But social isolation means that you have a partner and you're trying to get all your needs met from them and they're not going to have exactly the same multifacets that you have. So you should have your friend who's your culture friend? You should have your friend who's your culture friend? You should have your friend who's your jock friend, you should have your friend who's your watch movies and cry because they're sad movies. Together, friend, you should have all these different friends because you have so many different facets and that is a really big part of my emotional well-being and self-support.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my goodness. You know, I never even thought of it like that before, but you're absolutely right, and I think you know when we're filling ourselves up with and taking care of our own needs. So we know the friend that we can go to when we're sad, we know the friend that we can go to when we want to work out or, you know, have a glass of wine or whatever it is that we want to do in the world. Then we've got them. So so if you're in a relationship and you're just the two of you, with not much social life happening on the outside, you're relying just on that one person who obviously can't meet every need that either of you would have.

Speaker 2:

In fact, I think that a lot of affairs start because of loneliness.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that's so sad.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is, that's so sad it really is, because it's a way that people unconsciously set up their lives for a massive amount of destruction, as well as their self-trust, right yeah? So it's like you know. Start with making more friends, people.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely. Shake the finger at them. Oh, that's perfect. Wow, tanya, what a fantastic conversation. I'm going to just kind of skip and go a little bit of a different direction for a minute, if that's okay. I have a few questions that I like to ask my podcast guests, so would it be okay if I ask you a few Of?

Speaker 2:

course All right. Yes, please do.

Speaker 1:

All right, because I'd love to get to know my guests a little bit better. So my first question for you is if you could travel anywhere in the world tomorrow, where would you go and why would you go there?

Speaker 2:

Oh my goodness, Am I allowed to change citizenship?

Speaker 1:

You can do whatever you want, wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do whatever you want, wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do.

Speaker 2:

Well, there's a lot of democratic socialist countries that have a really good safety net and infrastructure, but they're quite xenophobic and they don't allow outsiders to come in. But what I like about these democratic socialist countries is that there's a real cohesion between the government and the well-being of their citizens, and I worry that that is not as intact as it once was, or at least the illusion of it, let's say, is not as intact as it once was. So I think, if I could go anywhere in the world and still maintain my friends because of course, this is magical thinking, thinking and that means I get to take all my friends with me, that's right I would take all my friends with me and and my adult children and my dogs, and we would all go to switzerland or sweden or norway.

Speaker 2:

no, or you know these democratic socialist countries that have really uh a coherent um uh social safety net.

Speaker 1:

Yeah oh love that, love that. Okay, what's your favorite way to unwind after a busy day?

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's a super easy answer because I do it almost every day. I take a hot Epsom salt bath with lavender oil and I almost always fall asleep in the bathtub for half an hour, so it's really my nightly ritual Wow, that sounds wonderful and it sounds so relaxing, so relaxing.

Speaker 1:

And when you're using you know all of that. I have a. I mean, I'm not a therapist, but I've dealt with a lot of women's stories and not all of them are pleasant, and so sometimes you just need to get in the bath and smell some lavender.

Speaker 2:

Yes, yes, and I feel like energetically, water is so you know, it is both symbolically and literally cleansing. So it's a way of kind of coming back into my own energy field at the end of the day, Love that.

Speaker 1:

Okay. Do you have a favorite motivational quote that keeps you going?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I don't have a single one, but I would say the sentiment is, I'm more useful if I don't play small.

Speaker 1:

Love that yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So it's not just about us, right? It's about if we really believe we are all one family and we're all here to be useful for one another. It doesn't serve anybody just to play small.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, especially us women.

Speaker 2:

Yes, especially us women.

Speaker 1:

Wow, you're just making my brain go. That's good. It's good, though. It's always good to get a different perspective and to hear what people think, and I appreciate it. Okay, what is a favorite book that inspires you?

Speaker 2:

So there's a wonderful book from a million years ago, like, I think, early 80s, called Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers.

Speaker 1:

I remember this book.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is this wonderful, very practical, written for, you know, any human being, non-academic but well-researched and well-explained book that talks about anxiety management and anxiety reduction and really explains beautifully the action of a phobia and how phobias are either getting worse, getting bigger, or they're getting better, getting smaller through exposure. And she explains this concept that I love, which is we often have this fantasy I'll do that thing when I feel better. And the reality is I will feel better when I do that thing.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely yes, I yeah, it's um, I have a lady who wrote a story in one of the books and she wrote it about sometime, never, sometimes never comes Totally totally.

Speaker 2:

There's another way to say that, which is as soon as you get there and there becomes here, you simply acquire another there.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, I guess that's growth. Yes, yeah, which could be a good thing, I guess. Um, do you think it's a? I?

Speaker 2:

think it's about how, how quickly we move from there to here and then needing to go to the next there, right, it's like if we can savor that moment when there becomes here we move out of that little hamster wheel.

Speaker 1:

Yes, absolutely yes. What about dinner? So if you could have dinner with any woman in history, any woman at all, who would it be and why?

Speaker 2:

Again, these wonderful questions. Well, I do have a bit of a crush on Michelle Obama, so I would love to sit down and have dinner with her. I also have great respect for Melinda Gates. Oh yes, so yeah, I think Michelle Obama, melinda Gates. Oh yes, so yeah, I think Michelle Obama, melinda Gates those are the two who I'm thinking of right off the top of my head. Beautiful.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, okay. And my last question if you could whisper one truth into the ear of every woman who's struggling right now, what would you say to them?

Speaker 2:

You belong here. You belong here on earth and you are important. Your gifts matter, don't give up.

Speaker 1:

Oh, thank you for that. That was. That was beautiful. I appreciate that. Thank you, wow, what a fabulous conversation. Well, I would just like everyone to know that Tanya's information is going to be in the details section of the podcast and of the video, so if you want to reach out to her in any way, you'll be able to do that. Also, we'll have the link to her book. So if you would like to learn how not to be an asshole, grab the book I'm teasing, of course, but not really Grab the book and you can certainly purchase it. It's on Amazon.

Speaker 1:

I have just really really appreciated our conversation. Tanya, thank you so much. I can tell when you speak, you have done this for a very long time and you have amazing insights. So, uh, and I appreciate it. One of the I was thinking a couple of months ago you know, one of the best thing about doing podcasts is I get to learn so much from all of the guests that come on and help, and you guys help me to adjust my thinking or open my mind into another thought process or something, so I really appreciate that. So, thank you for thank you for being so open and willing to do this.

Speaker 2:

Now, it's been a delight, julie. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, you're so welcome.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so in closing, tanya me oh, you're so welcome. Okay, so in closing Tanya is there anything at all that you would like to share with the audience, any anything?

Speaker 2:

at all that you would like to share. I think we are built for joy and I think we forget that under the pile of to do's that we become sort of preoccupied with as we get older.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, for sure, Wow, okay, well, a wealth of information. Thank you so much, tanya, and remember everybody you can reach out to Tanya. All of her information will be there. You can grab her book if you think that that would be helpful to you, and and then we will see you again for another episode of Women Like Me. Take care everybody. Bye, thank you, bye.

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