Experiences That Change How People See Themselves and Each Other
Michael Tertes creates highly engaging, experiential programs that invite people to discover something they couldn't see before, about themselves, the people around them, and what's possible.
Designed for leadership teams, organizations, conferences, retreats and communities.
A highly experiential program that changes how people see themselves and one another.
Every person you’ve ever met knows something about you that you don’t. Not because they know you better, but because they know what it’s like to be with you.
We know ourselves from the inside, through our intentions, efforts, hopes, fears, and the stories we tell ourselves. But we can’t directly experience what it’s like to be with us. Other people can.
That leaves each of us with a remarkable blind spot: some of the most important information about who we are and the impact we have lives in the experience of other people.
The Essence Experience makes that information visible.
Through a series of carefully designed experiences, participants slow down and pay attention to what they actually notice, appreciate, and experience in one another. They receive perspectives from others, begin to recognize patterns across those perspectives, and discover qualities they may have been expressing for years without realizing how significant they are.
And something else happens at the same time.
Participants discover how much they already know about the people around them that they have never articulated or shared. Qualities they may have taken for granted suddenly become visible. People they thought they knew become more interesting.
The experience creates a different way of seeing: more curious, more appreciative, and more alive to what is uniquely present in ourselves and the people around us.
This isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about gaining access to more of who you already are, while learning to see more of who other people already are.
People leave seeing themselves, one another, and what is possible between them differently.
Millions of capable people secretly worry they're not as smart, talented, or qualified as others think they are. And Impostor Syndrome doesn't just affect how people feel. It can quietly limit how fully they contribute.
When people are busy managing the fear of being found out, they may hold back ideas, avoid visibility, overwork, overprepare, hesitate to speak up, or pass up opportunities. The result is a cost to both the individual and the organization.
Rethinking Impostor Syndrome™ (RIS) is a highly practical, solution-oriented program that helps people understand what Impostor Syndrome is, why it happens, and how to navigate it. Participants leave with practical, immediately usable tools to address impostor-related feelings in themselves and others, helping unlock more confidence, participation, and contribution.
Rethinking Impostor Syndrome™ has been delivered to more than half a million people around the world.
What gets in the way of leaders being at their best, especially when the pressure is on?
We all have patterns that can undermine us when the stakes are high. We overthink. Avoid difficult conversations. Try to please everyone. Second-guess ourselves. Take on too much. Get defensive. Procrastinate. Or make decisions from fear rather than clarity.
Michael calls the part of us behind these patterns our Arch Nemesis, a.k.a. saboteur, gremlin, head bully, negative mind chatter. Left unchecked, it can quietly influence how leaders make decisions, communicate, take risks, navigate conflict, and show up when it matters most.
In this highly participatory workshop, leaders identify the specific, often sneaky strategies and tactics their Arch Nemesis uses against them. They learn to recognize when it has taken over and practice Michael’s five most powerful moves for interrupting those patterns.
The goal isn’t to eliminate your Arch Nemesis. It’s to stop letting it run the show, giving leaders greater freedom, clarity, and choice in how they respond, decide, and lead.
What if the most important part of your leadership is invisible to you?
Most leadership development focuses on what we can readily see and develop: strengths and talents, behaviors, skills, and performance.
Leadership Essence goes underneath them. It explores the qualities and patterns that are fundamental to who you are and shape the way you naturally affect the world around you.
The challenge is that some of what is most essential about us can also be the hardest for us to recognize. What comes naturally can feel ordinary. Qualities other people find remarkable may barely register to us. We can be successful for years and still not fully understand what is uniquely ours, or why we have the impact we do.
That creates a consequential leadership blind spot. If you don’t recognize what is actually yours, you can underestimate yourself, mistrust your success, compare yourself to leaders whose gifts are different from yours, or make important choices with an incomplete understanding of what you have to work with.
Leadership Essence is the disciplined practice of discovering what is uniquely yours, learning to recognize and trust it, and developing the capacity to express it more consciously.
Rather than offering another model of how leaders should behave, the work begins with the leader who is already there. Through reflection, the perspectives of others, and a structured process of inquiry, participants begin to recognize qualities and patterns they may have been expressing for years without fully seeing their significance or how they work together.
As those patterns become visible, something that was previously operating largely outside awareness becomes available for development and choice.
The aim isn’t simply greater self-knowledge. It’s greater access to who you already are, so more of what is uniquely yours becomes available to contribute. More…
“Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
— Howard Thurman