Little 22: Learn How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome With These 9 Tips

If you want to start a business or explore a passion, but you feel like you've got no right to do it, this is for you. Here's how to overcome Imposter Syndrome. Full show notes at https://easiercast.com/little22

Transcript

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You're listening to easier. I'm Anthony Wagner and I gotta tell you this is going to be a strange different episode. Um, so I don't know, honestly if I'm considering this a little episode or not. Uh, I think just for the sake of consistency I'm going to, but the reason that it is strange is because I have had kind of a, a realization I finally have gotten to a place where I've been interested in going. And that's what this whole episode is about. And we're going to be talking about overcoming imposter syndrome. And the way this came up was because I was at Starbucks with one of my very good friends, Colleen, and she and I were talking, and I told her, you know, um, I'm in a space with the podcast. I just don't feel connected to it. And I definitely am putting out content and the content's been pretty good, but I'm just not, I feel I feel stagnant. And so we had this whole conversation about that. And what it turned into was this discussion in a strange way about imposter syndrome. So what ultimately this means is that the whole podcasts focus is shifting immediately, right? I'm not even gonna wait, it's a, by the way, happy, happy new year. This is a January 1st in this episode airs. So happy new year to you. And I thought given that it is the new year, this would be the perfect time to shift focus. So I haven't really decided on the structure, but the focus is moving to an online marketing, digital entrepreneurship type focus. I've kind of touched on those elements a lot throughout the course of this show's history. However, I've always been pretty, uh, afraid of tilting fully into that topic. I, it's basically because it's been a, like a sneaky form of impostor syndrome that's had its hooks into me and I didn't really put my finger on the fact that it was imposter syndrome. So this episode, what we're going to do and going forward, I'm going to focus on one topic per episode. So previously, all of my episodes that had multiple topics in each, each episode going forward is just going to look at one specific topic as it relates to online marketing, digital marketing, entrepreneurship, things like that. This is what I really want to talk about. And so the first thing I will say on this topic is that that may unfortunately not appeal to some of you who I've counted as a very loyal listeners so far. Hopefully it appeals to everyone who listens to the show on a regular basis, but if it does not appeal to you, if digital, uh, entrepreneurship online marketing are not an area that you're, that invested in, in learning more about and being a part of a community around then I have absolutely no hard feelings. If you decide that the show isn't right for you, I thank you so, so much for being with me thus far. However, if you are interested in these topics or at all in work and continuing to talk about productivity, then you'll fit right in as we go along. So I'm really excited to change this format and shift really hard shift into online marketing. That's what I want to talk about. And basically the idea is making online marketing easier. Right? We're going to keep the same name for the show. And uh, yeah, another thing I want to give a quick disclaimer, uh, going forward and I think I'm gonna announce this at the top of every episode, once I've gotten into the, the new vibe of things, uh, there may be some explicit language going forward. I'm going to, I think I'm going to change the show settings to flag that there may be some, uh, explicit language that's part of my personality. I swear all the damn time. See, there you go. And, um, so that's something I'd like to incorporate into the show. Just, it's just my personality. And I've kind of downplayed that because I wanted to put out a more clean podcast if, I guess, if you want to call it that. But going forward, uh, yeah, I'm not going to be afraid of swearing on the show and uh, you know, all the way up to F bombs that will come later in the show, I promise because there's a quote that I have to read that has one in it. So there will be one in this show. All of that is to say if you've got a little ones or anyone that you don't want to hear that language, maybe pop in a pair of headphones to listen going forward. Okay. So changes that's online marketing, new, uh, adult language. Um, one topic per episode, I'm going to test out at the beginning monthly themes and we're going to focus in a number of different topic areas. So the topic areas that I'm considering, uh, that I think I'm absolutely going to use and they'll expand and change as we go, but they're in the areas of entrepreneurship, marketing, best self technology organizing. And then I still am going to have favorites, but again, everything is going to focus around online marketing and making business and online marketing easier. Okay. All that boiler plate aside. I'm glad that you're, if you're still with me and still listening to the show, really appreciate it. I want to say one last thing. I suppose before we start talking about imposter syndrome and that is that this just feels right for me. I've struggled with kind of feeling a, not a disconnect from the audience, but I just feel that the show, um, there is some engagement there is relatively low. I do hear from some of you occasionally, but I would really love to hear from folks more frequently and I think being more specific around, uh, you know, a niche topic is helpful. I think that folks get more passionate the more niche down you go. And I think that I have certainly become like laser focused on these things and all of this ties into my, my worldview and the things I want to accomplish and stuff like that. So this is just the right way to go and I'm really excited to go down this path with you. I explained to Colleen, I messaged her this morning and I said that I felt previously like, you know, at least now I noticed this. I couldn't have known it then. But um, previously I felt like I was lost in a forest somewhere and suddenly I've stumbled upon a path and now I have a way forward. That seems pretty clear to me that this just makes sense. But I guess the big that's looming is why did I wait so long to make that change? And I will say that it is really a product of, of strange version of imposter syndrome. So what is impostor syndrome? The basic definition of imposter syndrome is the persistent inability to believe that one success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own effort or skills. So the short version is that you don't deserve success or that you don't deserve the rewards of your effort or that you even deserve to think about those rewards. So I'm talking today about how to overcome this because it's so detrimental. And I really thought I had a handle on it from that kind of generic definition, but I discovered that there another layer that was holding me back. So we will get to that. So let's start talking some strategies for how to overcome imposter syndrome. And I've gotten six from Marie Forleo who is amazing. If you haven't listened to any of them or Forleo's stuff or read her book, she is amazing. Just search Google for Marie TV and she will come right up and watch anything, anything she puts out. But it really, the imposter syndrome video hit home with me before and then I read it in her book. Everything is figureoutable and it just made sense for me to kind of summarize some of her points from her uh, experience. And then I have a few of my own that I'm going to share and in terms of how to overcome imposter syndrome. So the first tip that Marie shares, the first six are hers. And then I have three of my own and I'm going to kind of give my take on each of these as we go. So the first one is to share the shame. Maria says that lots of high achievers, and I know this is me to struggle with shame and we resist talking about anything that makes us feel shameful. And so what's true is that imposter syndrome is totally rooted in shame. We're shamed, we feel shame that we're not going to be good enough, that we are not going to sell enough, that people aren't going to like what we do, things like that. And that causes us to kind of bottle that up. I know that's true for me. I'm guessing that's true for some of you. If you've been in this space where you're pursuing new passion, a new hobby, a new business, and you feel some shame around that, that you shouldn't write, that word should comes up a lot. So that is a problem. And the best way to combat it that both Marie Forleo and then Bernay Brown, she's a shame researcher that both of them advocate is that you just kind of have to dive into it. You've got to talk about it, you've got to bring it to light because shame can't exist in the light, right? It's based in fear. It's based to the shadows and as soon as you bring it out in the light, it's like that scene in the Hobbit where you've got the trolls all hanging out and they get distracted until the sun comes out and they all turn to stone or like Hocus Pocus, same deal. They can't survive. Those gremlins can't survive in the light. So you have to bring them out and talk about them. And that's hard for high achievers and it's hard to even know that we're talking about shame in and of itself. So imposter syndrome is based in that were actually my first tip that we'll come back to when we get to, I think number seven is, is about this. So that's number one is share the shame. Number two is shine your light out. This is totally a Marie Forleo idea. And let me add this, I don't think I mentioned it, but Marie Forleo, if you don't know who she is, she is a an individual who talks, she's like a life coach kind of person and she talks about building business and it's beyond that though too. She talks kind of self-development, self-growth, entrepreneurship, stuff like that. And she is wildly popular and very much deservedly so. She's amazing. So if you haven't checked out her stuff, I will have a link in the show notes and I'm still going to call this a little episode even though it really isn't, but I'll still leave it at little easier. cast.com/little 22 that's this week's episode is a little easier. 22 so I guess we'll keep that for now. And then we're probably gonna shift back into a regular episodes, maybe sooner, but at least on schedule, which is at the beginning of February and from then on it it might change a little bit. So we'll see. Anyway, shine your light out is her idea that your attention is like a flashlight and can only focus on so much at a time really in one direction. So if you spend a lot of your time shining your light inward on the insecurity, on all of the negative that's going on, you put all that focus there and you can't see anything else. But if you make the conscious decision to turn the flashlight around, point it outward and shine it on the customers or the people you're trying to serve that audience and their problems, it helps to kind of diminish the, you know what's going on there. So shining your light out is step number two. Number three is an amazing idea and I really got to get on doing this. I've got to go back and compile things. But number three is start a hype file. So you've may have heard of a swipe file where you kind of go online or wherever clippings and things like that, and you keep all of the stuff reference material that you like other people are doing right? If you're in a marketing space, you can take all the ads that you see, like take screenshots and things like that, keep them in a file and that way you can swipe the information and use it for later. So she calls this a hype file and this is basically putting all of the good stuff that happens in one place so you can reference it when the going gets tough. Things like nice comments, good reviews, uplifting emails, insights you find online milestones, things you've accomplished, anything like that. All can go into this hype file and it'll be there waiting for you when you're down in the dumps and just hate life. Right. I know I've been there and that little file for me, I mean when I go back and see other things, I keep track of milestones in my planner, but beyond that, just all the nice things that people have said. Stuff like that is definitely a pick me up and you could set up a place like a physical file if you want an in print that stuff out and put it physically in a file or you could put it in a notebook in OneNote or Evernote, a Google drive folder, a one drive folder, things like that. Any of those would work for your hope file system for three. Number four is track successes and stumbles, right? So the hype file kind of in and of itself is the successes bit, but making sure that you're tracking milestones as you achieve them. I do this on a weekly basis. I can attract the good things that happened throughout the last week, but she recommends that you track your stumbles as well and I am definitely going to start doing this. Thinking back each week as I do my review, what things have I struggled with and what mistakes or failures have occurred, and you can learn a lot more quickly from them when you can see them in one place and you can reflect on them without having to like wait for that quote unquote inspiration for that memory to come back. So that's number four is track successes and stumbles. Number five is develop a GoTo mantra and a spoiler alert. Here comes the profanity. I know I've kind of led up to it, but so I'm not a big kind of mantra person. I'm, I think of myself as a realist, right? I think of myself as relatively grounded and I don't think there's anything wrong with mantras, but for me they just seem a little, I don't know, maybe the nice word is a theorial. They just, they're just typically aren't for me. However, Maria suggests a couple of Montrose on her in her video that just hit home, especially the one from Mindy Kayling. Then I'm going to read in a second and I think I'm going to probably like put this somewhere so I can see it all the time. But she suggests when you're getting, when you get in a rut or you get down on yourself to have a couple of mantras or at least one ready to go, and the one she recommends for Mindy Kayling is, why the fuck not me? Uh, the idea is that you ask yourself, well, why should me, why should I deserve? Why should I have, why should I be successful? Why should I have a business? Why should I want? And the response to that should be, why the fuck not me? Like hello. That's why should I not be deserving of all of those things too. So that's, I love that. That really just hit home and I love it and I'm going to start reminding myself of that. Why the fuck not me? And then the other one is from Marie Forleo herself and her, hers is your Marie fucking Forleo. You've got this bitch. And that one cracks me up. And that one's not quite my style. The first one is much more to the point a and a little less dramatic I would say. But um, yeah, come up with a mantra, something. And if the profanity laced mantra doesn't work for you like it does for me for sure. Uh, tilt into something else, right? Look up something that would make sense for you. But I am a realist. And while typical mantra is don't speak to me, I will start saying, why the fuck not me? Whenever that negativity strikes. So that's number five. Number six is stay humble. And this is her last tip where she cautions that folks suffering from imposter syndrome, typically, not typically, but they often can go to a place of overcompensation. In other words, they become huge douchebag assholes. And that drives people nuts. They go way too far. They try to make it seem like they know at all to avoid people thinking that they really have no knowledge whatsoever. And that's coming from a place of shame and don't do that right? If you find turning into that idiot that everybody around you hates. Head back to tip number one, which is talk about the shame with someone and do that ASAP. You and everyone around you will. Thank you. Okay, so those are Marie Forleo's six and let's talk about three more. That were my own insights as I started to learn about this and what I didn't realize was I have a bit of, had a bit of a mutant version of imposter syndrome going on, right? Typically the definition is that you don't feel that you deserve success, that you shouldn't want X, Y, Z, that you're not capable or qualified enough. And so my situation was that I wanted to talk about business, about entrepreneurship, about podcasting, things like that. And I kept saying, well, you're not an expert, right? You don't have enough success. You're not successful enough to demonstrate that anybody should listen to you so you can't talk about it yet. And that yet part was really kind of, it's like the carrot on a string dangling in front of you. It's like I kept avoiding talking about this space of avoiding, talking about building a business and online marketing. But the desire was always there. It was always dangling in front of my face. And it wasn't until I realized over the weekend I was talking to Colleen and I said, it was really kind of down. I couldn't figure out who my audience was. I just couldn't, didn't feel focused. I wasn't connecting with the content. The engagement was low and all that stuff was true. And I finally snapped out of it when Colleen was talking to me and she said, well, you don't have to be an expert to share things that people care about. And I was like, Oh shit. That's true. Right? You don't have to be, uh, you know, Amy Porterfield to quote an online marketing expert, right? She's a podcast or everyone, a lot of folks know who she is. She's very famous. You don't have to have that level of success in order to have insights that other people might want. Right. I've learned a ton from where I started from, right. I started this journey years ago and I'm definitely going to share that story at some point in its own episode. But I mean, I started off with a blog that I think I called a powerful day, which was to focus on similar content, but it was still vague, but right, so I started in a place that didn't make any sense. I grew into these other kinds of blogs. I failed a number of times. In other words, those things had been shut down. I think there were three of them and they've shut down, and I've had a lot of learning experiences along the way to get to this point where I'm able to talk confidently about the things that I'm talking about. But even if I wasn't in this space where I've been doing this for years and I'm starting to see minor success and it's maybe starting to grow, I didn't even need to be. I could have said all along, I want to be in a digital marketing space. I want to talk about entrepreneurship and online marketing and I'm going to share it from the perspective that I'm new to this and I'm not an expert. Here's my journey. And I think people like that kind of stuff. It's, you're not so much listening just to experts. You're listening to people who are just like you. And that's what really what I am. I don't claim to be an expert. I don't have to be an expert. Right? I've learned a lot in this space and I may have been denying other people some of this information. I know when I help Colleen get her stuff started, she was very grateful for kind of the leaps she was able to make over a lot of the technical issues I had in developing my website and things like that. So I have things to share. I'm not at all claiming to be an expert. I'm looking to grow success and I'm looking to do it publicly in a vulnerable way, which you know, it is vulnerable to share stuff like this. Um, but I don't have to be an expert. I don't have to feel like I don't have enough success, therefore I'm not qualified to talk about it. That's bullshit. I'm calling bullshit on myself and I'm talking about it. That's how we got to the plane that we are now with this show we're talking about online marketing. It's about making online marketing easier. That's where we are number eight. That was number seven by the way. Number eight is that your ideas matter, my ideas matter, right? I had this period when I was trying to come up with other business ideas and I was struggling to find something that wasn't already done before. Well, I learned a couple of things. The first thing is that if you find something that hasn't been done before, chances are nobody wants that thing. So you, you want things that have been done before, meaning there's a market for them already. It's much harder to create a market for things. But anyway, um, the other thing was that what I had to say was irrelevant that nobody would care and that's false and I'm going to challenge you not to think that, that I want you to start saying to yourself, this could be your mantra. Your ideas matter, my ideas matter. So a while back I created a desktop background and it's this beautiful night sky. I think it's either on an ocean or a Lake and it's got some like mountain, uh, off to the side and it's a beautiful starry night sky. And I put the words in thin white letters kind of in the sky. Your ideas matter and I set that as my desktop background so I have reinstated that to my desktop background. It is backup now on my screen. And what I decided was, Hey, I think other folks might like this too. It's gorgeous. So you can see if you go to the show notes easier cast.com/little 22 you can see it as like the big image at the top of the page. As you scroll down, before you get to the content, that image is a preview of it and then you can see like a preview of it, a screenshot of my desktop background in the show notes. So if you like it, I would love to send it to you for free. So, um, I, I created a mobile version two so you can set it as your phone's background too if you wanted. So that's pretty cool. You'll get both. So if you go to easier caste.com/downloads which is, you know, just the word D, O w N L a, D. S, that's where I'm going to start putting all of my freebies. And this is a place I'm, I'm hoping, I'm still kind of working out the technical stuff. I will have this one thing there for sure. If you want it, that's where you'll go to get it. So it will be there, it will live there. That's how you'll find it. But everything else, all the other freebies I've ever offered, my goal is to put all those downloads, the checklists that I've had, the 15 strategies for getting more out of the day, stuff like that. All those things in one place. So you enter your email address to grab that and it will give you like all the stuff in one place. I think that's pretty, uh, I think it's pretty cool, right? It's a lot easier than having to download 15 different times and put your email address in every single time. I'm trying to create it so everything's in one place. So hopefully if you go to easier cas.com/downloads that's where that will be. I'm testing out different stuff right now. I'm playing with like a an eCommerce thing where you go to their shop and you can download anything without having to do a bunch of stuff. I may ultimately just kind of create a single like link resource that gets emailed to you when you request a download and I'll just keep updating that and putting new links in there so you can always access anything. You just do it one time and you'll always get the updates. So I think that's pretty cool. Easier. casp.com/downloads um, you can also go to the show notes. There's a link there so it's easier to[inaudible] dot com slash 22 okay. Number nine is the last one. And the last thing is I wanted to kind of bring this full circle and talk again about number one, which is sharing the shame, but I wanted to add on to it. Share with someone you trust and I don't think that we always label what we're feeling as shame. Right? I would not have said imposter syndrome, shame. That didn't make sense to me, but that's what it is, right? It's rooted in that place and so I take it a step farther from share the shame to share the struggle. It gives you more leeway in terms of what we're talking about, right? It's a broader definition, a broader suggestion when you're struggling about something, something with your business, share it, whether it's in an online community, and I'm hoping that this is something we can grow as part of this platform. I've got a really clear idea and how about an online community we can grow to support each other in this entrepreneurial journey or whether it's someone in your space that you trust or a friend that you trust. Colleen, for me, is that person, right? She is my trusted person that I believe will give me honest feedback. When the logo is ugly, she's going to say, no, that sucks. Maybe she'll say it nicely, but she'll say, no, that sucks. When the idea sucks, she'll say it sucks. But when the idea is good, she gets really excited for me. And when we had this conversation, she was like jumping up and down excited for me. So that is my last piece of advice to share with someone you trust and get that real honest feedback that will help keep you on track, but also help you to stay motivated. So those are the nine strategies, tips for learning how to overcome imposter syndrome. I cannot tell you what a relief it has been. I'm in such a a better place. I have so many ideas of content to share with you. So many strategies. Actually what's interesting is that how we're going to structure this coming up is going to feed right into the other stuff that I've been creating. So as an example, January, I'm planning to do all about goal setting. Whether or not there are little episodes or not, I don't know. I may just convert back to regular early because that's this. Today's episode really was a full on episode. I wonder how many words, uh, I wrote in the show notes already. Yeah, I mean, well it wasn't quite that many, but um, you know, it was like 1500 words in the show notes. So maybe we're not going into little, but it's going to be all about goal setting because this is the time everyone's making and setting new year's resolutions and things like that. And so I have a pretty big announcement. I kind of buried it here because it's not 100% I've got lots of irons in the proverbial flare here. I've got lots of stuff going on so it's not 100% perfect. It will never be. But my course that I've mentioned a few times is finally ready. You can finally register for that and it's called now. It used to be called, it started off as focused for real and craft your big goals and now the whole thing is called clear mind. The idea is that to do list stress, people the hell out and they, it stress me the hell out. Oh God, I can't tell you how much my to do. This used to stress me out and the fact that I never could trust my system. And then I was all over the place and I was just constantly organizing and reorganizing work. And I finally found a way to make that better. Your to do list doesn't have to be stressful. So if you're an entrepreneur who's growing a business online and you feel paralyzed by all the work that's on your plate, you are absolutely not alone. I used to feel this exact same way and that's why I developed the method. It's called clear mind and its ultimate goal is to take you from that stressed out, wigged out place where you've got a bazillion things and not enough time to do it. That's not going to change. I'll tell you that much. You will always have too much to do and not enough time to do it, but you will feel so much better about the things that you pick to work on. You'll know that you're doing the right stuff at the right time through this method. And I have the whole first, uh, unit done. That piece is called craft your big goals. And by the end of that unit you will have a complete flushed out passion-based list of goals that we can iterate on. That's the first step. The next step is to narrow that to focus on just one goal and I teach you how to do that and the last is to implement my like crazy awesome tracking and planning method that I just, it's like it's changed my life. So if you put your name previously, as I mentioned a few weeks ago on the wait list for access, there are about 20 folks who said that they were interested in early access to this course and you will 100% get first dibs at the course. The way you're going to register for it right now because it's still kind of being developed, you need to shoot me an email and you can do that by just sending an email to podcast@easiercast.com saying that you're interested. I will enroll you and give you the instructions for enrolling in the course. It will not always be that way, but because it's still kind of in beta, the content is done. It's all uploaded to the platform. You can go, you can watch it all, you can get everything out of it. I just kind of, the stuff that's around it has to be beefed up. And so for right now, email@podcastateasiercast.com say you're interested in clear mind. And if you were one of the first folks, I only have 10 seats, I should say that for these founding members seats just 10 and those come at a$9 price point, which is crazy, right?$9 is unheard of for courses on the whole, especially at, you know, as much content is going to be in this. So ultimately the price will go up, it will go up very soon. As soon as we hit the 10 that's it. So the folks that um, are on that list as of today, right? You've already submitted, there's about 20 you get first access, shoot me that email podcast@easiercast.com and I will get you instructions to get enrolled and you can pay the$9 and that'll be that you get lifetime access to the whole course. So this is an amazing deal because ultimately I'm planning to charge at least 99 if not one 99 for the course in the future when it's fully developed, all the content is there. So you'll get access to all of that. You'll get access to the exercises and I train you on some tools that are amazing and you get access to me. There's going to be a community, the whole tracking system, which is incredible. Um, there's just so much. So shoot me that email, get on that wait list and we're going to be talking about this course and goal setting for the month of January because it goes hand in hand with this whole new year's resolution. Dealio so that's all I've got for you for this episode. I don't have like a formal highest, uh, sign off right now. I'm still working on updating all of these materials, but because I released to you on a weekly basis, I wanted to make sure that I at least talked while we're still in transition. So this is the new format for the show. I would love to hear what you think. You can still go to the show notes and leave a comment, which is easier. cast.com/little 22 you're welcome to shoot me an email and we can talk about it. I think I'm going to resurrect my Facebook group and we'll start looking at that. There's a whole lot that I have planned, uh, and you know, these topics just, you just get my juices going, entrepreneurship and marketing and tech and you know, like web design and all this stuff around building a business. So I hope you enjoyed the content for today. I'm looking forward, so, so forward to bringing you more. I've already got all of January planned out and I really think you're going to love it and we're going to build a terrific community together. So until next week, here's to easier online marketing. Bye for now.