What's the real root of imposter syndrome? And why copying other peoples business blueprints is a really bad idea

What's the essence of having an authentic business?

We discuss personal branding, and emotional fulfillment in business. 

We talk about avoiding the trap of blindly following blueprints and templates other business owners set out for you and how this all comes back to imposter syndrome - because when you feel like an imposter you don't trust yourself and you don't trust your own expertise leading you to feel like you need to follow someone elses strategy. 

We want to emphasize the importance of creating unique offerings that align with your personal values and life circumstances rather than mimicking others. Copying is never a good strategy. 

We advocate for intuitive decision-making and staying true to yourself while contributing to the collective.

Our conversation underscores the significance of balance, authenticity, and mindfulness in achieving sustainable business growth and personal fulfillment.

You can find Ané and Stacey on Instagram at:

Stacey - @barefootbranding
✦ instagram.com/barefootbranding
🌐 barefootbranding.academy

Ané - @mgmnt__
✦ https://www.instagram.com/mgmnt__/
https://msha.ke/anemgmnt

Visit us here: 🌐 trustingtheuniverseandshit.com
Email us: 📩 hello@trustingtheuniverseandshit.com

Intro music by Tyler Dixon

Transcript

Ané: 0:05

And it comes back to those, authentic offers that we can bring into our businesses in order to amplify the best parts of us

Stacey: 0:15

This is more important than just making money or just getting aclaim. I'm creating something. That's all of me. And like the fullest expression of who I am.

Ané: 0:47

Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of trusting the universe and shit. Of course it is with Stacy and I, and today we were going back and forth a little bit about the topic that we wanted to talk about, but today we wanted to discuss business and how in. Business, we can fall into this sort of trap of constantly needing to find the right resource, find the right guide, find the right workbook in order for us to do business right. and how it's actually this self fulfilling prophecy on how we get into this loop of not really ever finding a really good strategy or, you know, alignment in our business and how we want to do business. So, yeah, we want to talk about that, a bit of imposter syndrome as well, and how that feeds into it, a whole range of things.

Stacey: 1:44

So today we want to talk about the process of creating unique offerings. And also, I think a little bit of personal branding comes into this as well because personal branding is very. hard to define, because personal branding, anyone can have a personal brand. You don't have to have a business. In order to have a personal brand. And yeah. So today I wanted to talk about that. I want to talk about the emotional fulfillment that we get from creating our offerings how can we find that fulfillment in order to create offerings that are unique to us without the spiral of the imposter syndrome.

Ané: 2:20

Yeah. I mean, can you guys tell that we are doing a recording at 7 p. m. So please bear with us, but we really wanted to get this in and actually it's so funny how we're talking about this topic because something on top of all of these things was also just. Being very reflective in your business or in your personal brand and the tasks that you have attached to evolving and expanding and scaling, which is all the amazing, beautiful things we wanted to, have that emotional, energetic link to it too, because so many of us, of course, we have this desire. We build the brand, we build the business, and we start to have this really seeded, desire that we want to bring into the world. And then we start doing it. And then all of these blocks come up, all of these intense emotions come up, all of these, cycles and patterns like burnout come out and we're just like, what are we doing? We're pulling our hair. And so I think one thing we also wanted to discuss was about how do we kind of self reflect and, document how we are doing business. And if there's things that it's maybe just little tweaks that we need to do in order to have more of a fulfilled flow in the business and in the brand.

Stacey: 3:35

So you mentioned before we got on the episode about reflecting on our day emotionally. How would you recommend somebody would do that? Or what sort of insights have you come up with? To help somebody to, to reflect on their day. From that emotional space.

Ané: 3:53

Well, yeah, that's a great question. And it's one that I'm actually pondering myself too, because it's definitely one that like, I swing like as a pendulum, you know, I do get in these feminine states where I do try and reflect and take a pause and take a breather. And then I get into moments when I'm full of my masculine and I'm just go, go, go. And then I have neglected this emotional energetic side of me. And I was listening to beautiful podcasts recently about how Newt, you know, people who are dietitians in the health space, they do this a lot. In fact, they do it every single day and it starts with baby steps. And so I would apply the same method in business and in how you try to build your business, right? Like every day, you can get in these zones where you're like, some people, It takes a little bit for them to like, start getting into the actions and, Do the task other people like me, I wake up and I'm like, Oh my God, I have so much to do. And I kind of rush into it. So for me, I reflect on that. How can I come in a more, grounded state before I start my day? Is it a. 30 second breather. Is it a journaling session? What is it? And then can I start my task from there? So that's where I would start. How do I start and end my day on a working day as we would in business? And then I will build that up. I think that's the best advice that I would Say to someone, cause that's what I would do. And then yeah, build my way up where it's like every couple of hours and all the things, but I would definitely start at the end of the day. What about you?

Stacey: 5:28

It really interested me when you said it before we got on, because I was thinking. No so often do we focus so heavily on the strategy of what we're doing and getting through the task list? That often some of the feedback that I have seen in the research that we've done for clients and just with my own clients, is that people feel like they they've been sorry, busy all day. And then they get to the end of the day and they go, what did I even do? And They're just muddling through the day and rushing through things and not doing the high priority things. So they get to the end of the day and they feel like, what did I even do? Even if they've done a lot. One of the questions that I would ask is. what you're doing is emotionally fulfilling. You. And with your offerings when you're creating your offerings, you have to ask yourself. Is this really emotionally fulfilling me? Is this giving me back? What I put into it. It doesn't have to be a hundred percent, but is it. Coming back to you in some shape. And giving you something like this podcast, for example, this gives back to us. It's not just us. There's no way we could've gotten to, you know, 50 episodes. If. It wasn't feeding us back. Cause you know, this is all free. We don't get paid to do this. Not yet. So it has to be that because sometimes. I'm going to have to go through times when you're not getting like a lot of money from a client or something, and there needs to be something that's feeding you back. And so really assessing. And like you said, reflecting and saying to yourself, What parts of my work do I love and feeling me up.

Ané: 7:07

yeah, I love that you mentioned that. And that's kind of ties in with the self reflection in the morning, because I do think that we wake up and we're like, you know, your cortisol is kind of high. That's why you kind of wake up. because you're like, Oh, I got to get things done. Right? So you're, you're sort of in that brainwave of like, where's the money? Where's this? Where's that? And you, you haven't even taken a breather and ground yourself to really be like, what will actually fulfill me today? Like, what we've reflected on in the podcast. And so I love that you mentioned that and asking yourself that question, because so many of us get into that trap, like you say, of just trying to make means ends or whatever. And it's actually not really a longevity fulfillment. Totally and then that's what you said. Like, cause I was, I used to be like that too, where I would finish my day and I'm like exhausted and I was proactive. I'm doing the little quotation marks guys, because I was proactive, but I wasn't efficient. Like I, I,

Stacey: 8:03

When I'm being productive. I'll write down the three things at the end of the day for the next day. So that the next morning I have it there. And if you want to go further than that, you can map up your week or your month. And so what you want to do is you want to look at all of your priorities. And think to yourself, what are the most important pieces to this? Because sometimes we just get caught up. In things that don't really matter. Like finessing. Details in an email or really finessing things that aren't really high priority. And so part of this is going to have to be letting go of some of the details. We're not super sharp now. We're pretty sleepy. But it doesn't have to be perfect, like go us on the details and just do the work. It's better to show up consistently. For yourself to show yourself you have that discipline and to build the discipline muscle.

Ané: 8:58

I love that you mentioned that. And I think sometimes like, cause also, as we're speaking about the whole, recording at 7 PM sort of situation, it's like, I know from my clients and from past. I was quite rigid in the way that I was working. I was like, it has to be from this time to this time. But there's seasons where, yeah, you do recordings at late at night, or you do them over the weekend, or you do your tasks in a different time. And what I've noticed is when I have that breathing space of those moments where I can just like, go to the gym at a random time during the day or whatever. It feeds my creativity. Like there'll just be this drop of imagination that came through a drop of like, Oh my gosh, this would be really cool to do that. And I've had that time and time again. And so I wanted to put this in here because if you're someone that's very, like have to do it exactly like this, just. Try and bring more space into your day because you'll be so surprised what lands for instance, the other day I was just going for a walk and I had so much to do, but I just went and gone for a walk and got a coffee and this idea of like an offer came through and I was like, Oh, my gosh, if I didn't go for that walk, I didn't have a moment to just have that space that wouldn't have come through as loud as it did. So yeah, I think there's a really and that's an emotional piece in that energetic piece that we're talking about here too, right? Like strategy wise, it's silly for me to, to say. I needed to go and be in nature for a moment because it gave me actually a return of energy back in order to be more high higher in service. That makes sense.

Stacey: 10:39

Yeah. I was just looking up as you were talking that we need to find the space between the spaces between to find those notes. And, you know, there's a really famous quote. I'm not sure if it's a dipper, you seek. Great a web, whatever, but it's like, music is the space between the notes. So the music of life often happens in the spaces between, and we want to jam everything into every moment often. And also coming back around to one of the things that we wanted to discuss today, which was about creating original work and working in a way that suits you. One of the examples I have for that is. One of the ways that I started just working now, occasionally is like, I'll just take my laptop in to my bed. And I'll just like top away in there because, you know, we have these ideas in our head. No, no, I have to be at my desk. I have to work from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and have an hour lunch break because we have, sometimes we have this conditioning, from the workplace and we're trying to break that conditioning I've had my dad say to me, you know, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm working. He's like, well, it doesn't look like you're working, even though I'm sitting on the couch and I have my laptop. you have to stop to break some of those conditioning patterns about how people have told you that you need to run your business. The blueprints that people sell you, all of these things, aren't going to necessarily match the way that your skills work. The way that you want to work, the lifestyle that you have, the routines that you have really crafting out a way that's going to work specifically for you in your life.

Ané: 12:15

Yeah,

Stacey: 12:16

point.

Ané: 12:17

Yes. That's probably the whole reason we started businesses and we started personal brands and then along the way somewhere, that conditioning just gets stronger and stronger of like how it needs to be. And then you're in this trap. So yeah, I love that you're bringing it back to this. Look guys, don't, don't get us wrong. we've created workbooks. We've created templates. We've graded like masterclasses to help people. Strategize their business in the best way that they can, but I always say with anything of teachings, if it's a new software system, take what resonates, leave the rest. Like they may only be 1 percent of this whole thing that you were like, cool. That could be that intuitively feels really good to implement. I'm going to do that. And if. 99 percent of the rest doesn't, then please don't implement it. And I think you kind of do need to go through these educational pieces in order to form that self trust within to be like, no, actually that does not resonate. Or I tried that for a week or I tried that for six months and it fully put me in a burnout cycle. Like you got to go through these cycles in order to really find your niche strategy.

Stacey: 13:25

Yeah, exactly. And you're reminding me of another cart. From Bruce Lee and he says, absorb what is useful discard? What is not an add? What is uniquely your own? And that's what we're saying too. Yes, of course. I love templates. Templates are good, but you've gotta be the water that flows through that template and not just. Sticking to it because someone has said this blueprint is exactly how you need to do it. These content pillars. You know, these specific ways of launching or with a webinar and you have to do a webinar. No, you don't. You don't have to do it exactly the way because you're not listening to yourself. And you will push and push and push. Cause people need, people are paying for it. But what ends up happening is I end up hating it. And I can't do the work very efficiently very well because I don't really want to do it. and then I started to get. Really bogged in into it. And I can't see a way out and I feel so uninspired. So it just breeds this feeling of, resentment and it becomes really toxic and it's not a good way to have a longevity in the business.

Ané: 14:31

Totally. And it's icky energy and like people feel that as well. Like you can tell when, well, I can tell that specifically in like the social media space when people are just. Trying to post content for the sake of it or just trying to sell you for the sake of it. And I get it. I've done it too. Don't get me wrong. I'm not perfect. I'm sure I've posted an icky energy, but you can feel it. And it's this like repulsiveness that gets reflected and All it really is, is just, you know, I'm sure it's someone just trying to make means ends, but at the same time, it also really makes you feel like, is this person integral and intentional in their business? Like, do they actually care for you? Do they actually want to bring out the best in you? And I know that that's something I've had to reflect on time and time again, especially When you put your marketing hat on and you're like in your, marketing manager moment. yeah. And, it does breed this toxic pattern internally because the client's also now trying to follow a strategy that you've implemented, but you're also burnt out. And then there's just this really weird, ocean. of energetics And emotions, combined. So that's why we wanted to start it off and speak about the whole reflection piece and really tapping into your own emotional and energetic state when you're in your business and doing the actions, because it does start with you and then you can question, okay, is this going to be really important for them with this benefit them and so on and so forth.

Stacey: 16:06

you were saying that I was thinking, but just build your own island. So you build an island. In the ocean, the ocean of business, the ocean of marketing, the ocean of. You know, competition out there and you know, I've recently watched a video with Sarah Blakely. She cut off the bottom of her tights one day and created. In our billion dollar business. She was talking about how, when she entered the business space, that there was so much masculine. Energy there of you have to crush and kill the competition. And she said, you know what? I have to disagree and I've never run my business that way. She was just talking about this, you know, extreme masculine toxicity that exists and about crushing the competition. But us as, you know, female. Led. Business owners. We can lead a different way and we can lead in a way that doesn't focus on the competition and just focuses on quality and delivering really good products. And products that really help people. And, you know, how are you helping people and focus on that?

Ané: 17:11

Yes. I love that? And that is someone who is in their most empowered state, you know, like they made a decision one day, or maybe they had to constantly make that decision that this is how I want to run things. It may not logically look good. Like it's going to bring millions and billions and look a certain way, but intuitively, this is how I want to run things. And I believe like I have this whole heart at certainty that it's going to be beneficial for myself, for my employees, for my team, for, the collective. And so I love that. And I think that is such an important message there, right? Because she had to really stand strong in order to sort of face that bro market, bro masculine trait, and probably in a very masculine driven industry back then, right? Like now it's.

Stacey: 18:06

Hmm.

Ané: 18:06

Back then it was probably very much like the gym shock phases and stuff. So, I love that. And I think that's also very much in your leadership and that inner authority. And I think we could definitely take that from our own businesses and brands. Like, can I make a decision that I want to do my strategy like this? Can I be okay that I'm going to look differently or people, my team members might be like, what the heck and all the things, but can I be very certain that this is for the good of all? And my intention is very pure and then just work at it and build it from there. Because I also see a lot of business owners now who want to start a family or they have families and they're just like, I can't be on the, At my desk nine to five doing client calls all day every day. Like I'm also stay at home mom and I love that. And so it's just bringing back of like, okay, energetically, emotionally, how am I feeling when I do these things and can I build it? Alongside with my family as well.

Stacey: 19:02

Yeah. And like you said, we are here to contribute back to the collective and we have to ask ourselves, what kind of world do we want to see? And is it important for us to move the workforce away from that industrialization period of the factory worker from the nine to five? The structure, we don't need to have that structure anymore. Those of us at work online, who probably listened to this work online and more and more people are working online. We don't have to have that structure anymore. We can work outside the bounds of what we thought we had to do before. We can do a really big day and then take a day off. We can work for three weeks and take a week off. We can be parents. And finding ways to flow around our lifestyles. And I think it is, you know, from that spiritual lens. Coming back to the collective of feeding into the collective that. We become the best versions of ourselves and not the best version, but just the most us that we can be. So that, I think that's one of our main purposes for being here. So. You know, how can we do that? And make an income at the same time.

Ané: 20:12

Yeah. And it comes back to those, authentic offers that we can bring out into our businesses in order to amplify the best parts of us, right? and this is where, again, we're coming back to the whole, like, don't copy what I'm doing. Different templates and workshops and, do a 12 week course and you'll make millions, because that's just not going to be, it may have worked for that person who wanted to now, educate them, but it may not be for you. And so you have to come back to what is going to fulfill you and energy you have, and then figuring out how you can create your offers around that, you know, and I think so many of us. I know I've had this multiple times where people would reach out and they're like, I relate to like three points of what I would want for my business as a service. can we talk about it? And I'm always like, absolutely. Because yes, I have an idea of the type of person I want to work with, but they're not going to have all those boxes nor would they, right? So it's just like playing around and like. Folding and molding your offers in order to suit for you and for your clients.

Stacey: 21:18

Yeah. And like you were talking about copying other businesses. I've seen people copy word for word. I've seen people copy carousels, you know, stealing them and putting their own cover picture. I saw just one the other day. do you remember Energizer bunnies? So they actually stole that from the competition, the whole idea of the Energizer bunny. But it ended up backfiring. Because what happened was that everybody associated the Energizer bunny to the original company. So they spent all this money. All they did was put a pair of sunglasses on this money. It was like a TV ad spot. With this like Teddy bunny. And what ended up happening was everybody associated this with the original company that they copied it off. just because they put a pair of sunglasses on it, people couldn't tell the difference. And the original company ended up making more money than the company that copied the company that came up with the idea in the first place. So copying is never a good idea. Energetically, but it doesn't make sense for the marketplace anyway.

Ané: 22:21

Yeah. Totally. And like, look, like we can get inspiration from things, right. But you also have to then put your own twist to it and also really work out that like, It can't be just, yeah, a full duplicate situation because that's not, that's not authentic. That's not going to speak your intentionality about the business and the, and the brand. Right. So I totally get that. And this is what kind of, Emma Z in a previous episode, you guys that she, we had a, interview guests on and she was amazing. I highly suggest go listening to that about. Not acting from inspiration. And it's sort of like that like this company essentially acted from an inspirational, that's cool. Let's just like use that and do the whole duplicate copy and paste situation. And it didn't do anything for them. In fact, it made the others more successful. So take pieces of like What it made you feel perhaps, or what it led to, what you thought about, and then really just work on your own authentic office and, system that's going to really build your integrity, essentially. Yeah.

Stacey: 23:34

You just take what resonates with you with what someone has said. And then add what is uniquely your own to quote. Bruce Lee. Just do that. So take what resonates, add what? Add what is uniquely your own. And then you will have. A version of something where you pour in everything that you've learned up until this point. So that you're pouring in your life's experience. Into something and not really feeling like you have to, you know, drink from the fire hose of everybody. Who's learned this one. Skill because you will become over loaded and you'll start to feel like, you know, less than you did when you started. So just take what you feel like you need without overdoing it.

Ané: 24:19

No, it's not. And I think this comes back to like, very early on this episode. It's like, take a moment and reflect. Yeah. Like, you know, for instance, that offer or that inspirational of something that like landed for me the other day, I've sat all week with it. And I think sometimes we get in these like mindsets, like have to act right now and make an NNN and like, blah, blah. No. Take a minute because we always get influenced and inspired by many things and ask yourself the hard questions. Is this authentic? Is this integral? Is this going to serve me in a fulfilled way? Right. And then act on that. If those are all yes answers, then like, yeah, then act on it. But I think we have to note down, you know, is this going to, serve us for the collective individually, all of the things, because otherwise it's just not going, like you said, it's going to be this huge flame And it's just going to burn out.

Stacey: 25:22

And it's going to take so much of your life force, energy to do and create any type of offer. Sometimes people get this mistaken idea that they go, oh, can we just create this little thing? But anything that you're going to create is going to take quite a bit of your bandwidth, your mental bandwidth, and you may have time for it, but you may not have the mental bandwidth for it. So you really have to be very cautious about what you're choosing to move ahead with. And I like how you're taking that time to think about it. And, you know, you can write it down and say to yourself, like, does this fit into the life that I want? And I remember when I first started a business, I was thinking, what could I do? Could I open a little shop and then I realized, well, I can't, because one of my values. He said, I want to be location independent. So I just gave that up immediately. Okay, well, I can't open a shop because it's never going to work for me because it's too important. So you have to match these against the values and the things that you want for your life and make those hard decisions. Even if you're like, this will be so cool. Because it's going to take a lot of effort and energy. To get anything off the ground. So. You know, what's that saying? It's like, it's not effortless, but it's not effort. None.

Ané: 26:35

Hmm.

Stacey: 26:36

it might feel effortless because you're really passionate about it and you're really excited, but it's still going to take effort.

Ané: 26:46

Yeah. Like you're in a flow state, but there's still that energy that's attached to it. Yeah, totally. And I, I can so relate to that. And I think that, you know, as we're talking about, reflect on if this is attached to your values and if it's combined with your values, same thing, when you may have. Download a resource or download a template and you copy and paste it also no doubt what feels heavy and intense and you know, not authentic, like it's hard work, like there has to be the effort, of course, like that energy with it, but it Doesn't have to be hard. It can be life. Life can be fun. Like this, like business can be fun and light. Sometimes you have to do the not so fun things. That's being an adult. Like no one likes to do the washing, but you do it. And so it's the same with business, but 80 percent of it can be fun and it can be light and it can be expansive. So definitely reflect on that and see you know and then do the audit and then tweak it and doesn't have to be these huge drastic changes. Cause that's another thing, right? Like sometimes we fall into these, he's like, Oh, I'm just going to do a whole new rebrand. Well, I'm just going to do this whole new thing. It's like, actually it was just a bit of wording that had to change. Or actually it was just, you had a new, you needed a new booking system because it, that one was too hard for you to, like, it's these little things that can shift. It doesn't have to be a whole new rebrand, you know.

Stacey: 28:11

Yeah. And you know how you said that it doesn't have to be hard. In fact, I really don't think it should be hard. A lot of the time, like the dominant frequency should be feeling expensive. It should be feeling. like this has a bit of a tingle, a bit of excitement, a bit of. Ooh, this is cool. Why don't we do this? Why don't we? Oh, maybe we could do this because think about how many cumulative hours we spend at work. And if we're going to be on struggle street, that entire time, the amount of hours cumulatively or for the year. Ah, it's just going to be so soul destroying. So we need to find ways of finding out how can this be fun? How can this be unique to me? How can I find a way to stay? Grounded. And how can I find a way to flow through this experience? While I'm giving back. And while I'm. Creating these unique offerings at a unique to me in my life's experience so that they can, you know, sort of pour out of me. And I think that there's a. You know, there's that very spiritual lens in there because you're looking at it like. This is more important than me just making money or me just getting aclaim I'm creating something. That's all of me. And like the fullest expression of who I am.

Ané: 29:29

Yes. Yes. Oh, beautifully said. I couldn't relate more and agree more. And I think I feel like I want to end it there because it's just so that's just so potent. pause this and reflect on those questions that say it's just asked because, you will eventually get an answer and you will eventually come to a place where business can be a community. A flow state and you can have an all different expressions of your life. So beautifully said.

Stacey: 30:00

So I hope that you enjoyed this episode and if you had any aha moments, please send us a message. You can email hello@trustingtheuniverseandshit.com. And if you would like to leave us a review on apple podcasts, we would love that too, because we would love to hear from you and hear that you're listening and that, you know, we're not just talking to each other here, which you know, is really fun, but it'd be cool to see if we could hear from me because we do put a lot of effort and work into these episodes.

Ané: 30:32

Yeah. Amazing. Yes. Thanks for listening, you guys. And yeah, please do keep in touch and write us. It helps us extremely. I mean, we really do create this from, from love, from our hearts. So it's, not just another task to tick. I mean, obviously, cause we're doing this now at 7 p. m. So, thank you guys for listening. Yes. speak soon. Bye.