Coffee and Cuddles Season 2 Episode 2 Impostore!

Thanks Jeff, for being a fan.
Years ago, I found myself continually doubting my worth in relationships, mainly due to a past partner who constantly undermined my confidence. Even after relocating to the sunny vibes of California, where my happiness has visibly improved, remnants of that self-doubt linger. It's a journey I'm candidly sharing with you, alongside my co-host, as we discuss the need for reassurance and the importance of seeking validation from those who truly care about us. Together, we remind ourselves and our listeners that striving for perfection is a futile endeavor and that it's perfectly okay to lean on loved ones for support.

On a lighter note, we humorously recount a mishap involving a closed window—an unexpected lesson in preparation and authenticity. Ever tried throwing something only to realize the window's shut? It's these little, funny episodes that teach us the most. Beyond laughs, we delve into how small acts of kindness, like making breakfast for a partner, can significantly impact our hectic routines, especially in careers like teaching where demands are high. We gently reassure everyone grappling with imposter syndrome that these feelings are often transient, and that consistency and experience gradually builds confidence and a true sense of belonging.

Reflecting on education, we share how adopting a growth mindset has been transformative in our journeys of learning. Shifting our thoughts from "I can't do this" to "I can't do this yet" unlocked resilience we didn't know we had. Our stories of overcoming self-doubt and negative beliefs, particularly those instilled by educators in our past, aim to inspire. We highlight the incredible potential that supportive relationships and perseverance hold in transforming our educational experiences. Wrapping up this heartfelt conversation, we express our gratitude to you, our cherished listeners, encouraging you to find what resonates and embrace your unique path. Until next time, we send love and blessings your way.

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Transcript

Craig  0:01  
Hello and welcome to a riveting, exciting, ecstatic, inducing episode of Coffee and cuddles. Now I know, and to quote myself from myself from my other podcast, I know, I know, I know, I know it's been a long time. Sorry about that. Life gets in the way. Sometimes life

AnnaMarie  0:19  
gets in the way schoolwork gets in the way eyeballs get in the way health

Speaker 1  0:25  
issues, school, my my college, gets in the way. Still hate math doing really well. Still hate it.

Speaker 2  0:33  
Don't you all think he should double major in math and digital marketing?

Unknown Speaker  0:40  
Oh, I could, I could do digital marketing format.

Speaker 2  0:43  
There you go. I think we got him sold. He's also glaring at me right now. So on we go with today's topic, which is, drum roll please,

Speaker 1  0:56  
imposter syndrome, to quote my one of my favorite TV dads, Gomez Adams impostor, he says a little better than I do, essentially, how I understand it. You know that to say the way that some people do, as I understand it, imposter syndrome is the feeling that you are something that you aren't, or you're not something that you should be. What does he mean by that?

Unknown Speaker  1:24  
That's an excellent question. Thank

Unknown Speaker  1:26  
you, audience member for that question. We appreciate that.

Unknown Speaker  1:31  
Sound effects. Now, I

Speaker 1  1:32  
didn't realize I had hired a Foley person. All right, this is going to go really well. I can tell already.

Speaker 2  1:40  
And that's how he's taking the microphone away from me. I would

Speaker 1  1:43  
never want several times, maybe, but never once. How I see this is, and I'm, I'm sure she'll, she'll agree with me for the most part, I feel like an imposter as a boyfriend or as a good boyfriend. Now, why do I say that? Because I spent many, many, many, many, many, many, many moons and many, many years with someone that treated me like I was the worst boyfriend in the world, the worst husband in the world. And I spent a lot of my life worrying about, oh no, did I screw up? Oh, no, when is the other shoe going to drop all these things where it was a constant, like, for a long time, it was a constant, 24/7 struggle. Am I the one that's at fault here? Am I a bad husband? Am I a bad father? Am I a bad person? And the answer in to, in the shortest far possible is, no, I wasn't always bad. I wasn't always great, but I definitely was not always bad. Was this person a terrible partner, absolutely all the time, not all the time, just most of it. And I, what I started to say was, I'm sure I draw my girlfriend nuts with this by asking her all the time, am I a good boyfriend? Am I a good husband? Material? Am I good at this? Am I good at that? Or I still years later, even though in a few days, I will have been in California for three years, and my life, honestly, with very sweet exceptions, has never been better than it is now. I still struggle with this every day, and she tries to help me with it, and I'm sure she doesn't understand what's going on in my brain and why I feel the way I do. But when you're constantly beaten down day after day, minute after minute of Why are you so horrible? Why you so bad at this? What is wrong with you? Why can't you be better at these things, rather than work on it like two normal, sane adults would, sometimes it's easier for our partners, spouses, whatever, to point fingers and point blame. Now, like I said, I was not always a perfect husband. I was not always a bad husband, and there, there are many years where I try to be the best husband I could be, and I don't do it, you know? I didn't buy gifts to get gifts back. I didn't make dinner to have dinner made for me. I didn't do any of those things. I did those things because I thought that's what someone that loves you does. They just, they take care of you, they make you coffee, they warm your car, and frozen mornings when you don't have to get up, but they have to go to work, they make you coffee for work, or they bring you water. If your bathtub isn't warm enough, they bring you water. So I was doing all these things and I wasn't getting it back, and after all this time, that just led to me feeling like a fraud when it comes to being a boyfriend.

Unknown Speaker  4:42  
I think I've talked enough now I will let her interject.

Unknown Speaker  4:46  
I got carried away there. I'm sorry. So

Speaker 2  4:47  
let me start off by saying the other day he showed me a side by side picture, a picture of pre California. I'm going to refer. To it as and a picture before California, and a picture of icy in California. There you go, and the picture of before California. BC you could really see in this photo. Well, I could really see, I can't really show any of you the photo, but I could really see that he just looked like a shell of a human. He looked like he had just given everything and was just beaten down by life. When I look at the opposing picture, the the IC picture, the in California picture, he looks much more confident and self assured, um, relaxed, happy. So yes, does he ask me quite often, is he a good boyfriend, a good husband to be kind of thing. Yeah, he does. But does it bother me? No? Because I think everybody at some point just needs that little extra assurance from friends, family, significant others, just to know that what they're doing is enough, or is good enough? Because, first of all, and I tell this to my students all the time, no, buddy, is perfect. Perfection is not something we can achieve, because we always learn from our mistakes, and we always make mistakes. I want you to think back to when you were first learning to pull yourself up, whether it was holding onto the couch, holding on to the pant leg of your parent, holding onto a table, and you would pull yourself up, you'd be standing on your own two feet. And then you tried to take a step or two away from what you were holding on to. Did you automatically start to run? No. What happened was you fell on your bum. So what happened? Did you give up? No, you pulled yourself up again, and you tried those steps again. And after practice, you got it and you were walking, and walking led to hopping and skipping and running and all those ways of moving your body. So in your day to day life, now that you're an adult or teenager, because you know, we might have teenagers listening in, are you still making mistakes? Are there still things that you learn from? And the answer to that, even though you may disagree, is yes. Think about a dentist visit that you had, have they always been 100% perfect? No, I am sure your hygienist had to scrape off tartar, or The dentist might have identified a cavity, or you may have needed a root canal. Okay, these are things that we learn from we find out, what do we need to do to have less tartar build up? What do we need to do to avoid the cavities? What could have? Well, I know nothing can trigger a root canal, so that was bad example. So I'm going to take that and throw it out the window, which would have helped if the window was open, because now it has gone splat against the window and dripped onto the carpet. See, I made a mistake. Am I going to I'm not. Am I going to learn from this? Yes, that the next time I want to throw something out the window, maybe the window will be open and there won't be a screen in the way, and then I won't have stuff on the floor so it does not bother me that that he asks, and he always looks very nervous when he asks the question, because I know some part of his brain is wondering, oh, geez, Is today the day that She's going to say, I'm not enough? And that's not going to happen. I'm never going to say that he is not enough, because in my mind, he is doing things that show me that he cares, whether it's making lunch for me in the morning, making sure that I eat something before I walk out the door to drive to work, whatever it might be, it is always just nice to know that somebody is there to do something to take one less thing off of my plate. And you're probably saying, well, Breakfast isn't something that would be on your plate. Well, actually for me, yeah, it was, I was,

Speaker 1  9:46  
or you would grab, you would grab a bagel, or you would grab tarts.

Unknown Speaker  9:53  
So kind of snack? Yeah, I

Speaker 2  9:55  
would, I would literally grab, like the quickest most came. Thing as I was racing out the door. He doesn't let that happen. He makes sure that it is something hot. And if he can't do some, uh oh, I

Speaker 1  10:11  
think I've taken things out of your hand and say, no, no, no, we can't do this. And I make you something like pancakes or or scrambled eggs or,

Speaker 2  10:20  
yeah, he's done, you know, eggs and toast. He's done pancakes. If there's no time for something hot, then he will make sure that it is something that's going to give me energy, that's going to fill me up. And it could be something, you know, like yogurt with peanut butter granola on top. And you may be thinking, God, that's a lot of sugar, but the granola has protein in it, and it is something filling, and I don't get hungry during the work day. I may have mentioned this a time or two. I am a school teacher with seven year olds, and trust me, you don't want to be hangry when working with some Ooh, hangry, and you don't want to be angry when working with seven year olds.

Unknown Speaker  11:05  
Add that to the lexicon, ooh,

Speaker 2  11:07  
lexicon. Look at this one over here with the big woods. I don't know where that accent came from. Big Woods. Have no idea where that came from.

Speaker 1  11:17  
It's like New York and Philly and a little bit of Wisconsin or not, Wisconsin, um, Minnesota, okay,

Speaker 2  11:27  
I just did that. Now that's been recorded. I apologize for all of your ear pain just then in that two seconds of noise pollution, um, but

Unknown Speaker  11:44  
you know, I had a point. I'm sure

Speaker 1  11:46  
you did. Why? Why you ruminate on that and think about what your point is? I don't want you think that this is solely relegated to the realm of of dating. It's not because you know you you probably heard somewhere in your life, fake it till you make it, you know, just keep going, and eventually you'll get to where you want to be. And it, it absolutely applies to the work, the working world too, where I've done sales, I've done a lot of things, and I felt like, you know, this is so not me, and I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing. I feel like a phony and a fake. And that's all part of the to me, at least that's all part of the imposter syndrome stuff. So it's absolutely something that can come up in your everyday, day to day life. I think every day, day to day is a I repeated myself there a little bit, but, you know, it drives the point home of there are times when you're going to feel like an imposter. Are you an imposter? Not always, you know, it's one of those sometimes, maybe definitely not always, kind of things where the more you do a task, or the more you do a job, the more you do whatever function it is, the more you're going to feel like you belong and you're doing what you're supposed to be doing? I talked to so many people there in network marketing and affiliate marketing and all these things, and if not, they're like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't I don't know what this is. You know, people are going to see that I'm a fake and not always, because you can do things in such a way where it looks like you know what you're doing, even though you don't. And I'm not saying that fake it till you make it. Is absolutely great business advice or anything. It's not my advice would be, go learn as much as you can about something, and then go do it a million times until you get it set in your head that okay, I can do this. And Anna has had a open my eyes about The Open Mind concept, or growth mind concept, where growth mindset, I would say, I can't do this, I can't do this. I can't do this. That's

Unknown Speaker  13:52  
a fixed mindset. It

Speaker 1  13:53  
is a fixed mindset. And I'm at the point now in my my life where I don't say that. Least I don't think I say it anymore. Now I say I can't do that yet, but I'm gonna keep trying till I make it. You know, I do all kinds of crafting stuff, and there's so many things that I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I would never be able to do that. And then I do it, I'm like, oh my god, I was able to do it. Same thing with with math, and I will tell you, between Google and all the different math websites out there that show you the steps, and, most importantly, my my girlfriend helping me get through the math stuff I'm doing really well in this class. And it really aggravates, pardon the expression, but it really aggravates the hell I mean, because in seventh grade, and maybe I shouldn't name Shane, but Mr. Torres, if you're still alive and kicking or this word gets to you, how dare you tell me that I would never succeed in math, and the only way you would pass me from from beginner algebra, algebra, one, A, whatever it was called, was if I promised to never take another algebra call. US, and I am so angry now, because I spent so many years of my life I spent I've been out of high school since 85 so

Unknown Speaker  15:08  
it's been some years since

Speaker 1  15:10  
I've been in high school, and even it was a couple years before that was like my freshman or sophomore year, and he told me that. So since 83 ish, I've been convinced, like a million, 11,000,000% that I can't do higher math, I can do basic addition, subtraction, whatever, but I was so convinced I couldn't do algebra. And now there have been times when she and I are looking at one of my my problems for the week, and she'll come up with one answer, and I'll read it again. And in my my odd way of thinking, I'm like, No, I

Unknown Speaker  15:46  
don't think that's what they mean here.

Speaker 1  15:48  
I think they mean this. And then it turns out that I'm right. And I'm not saying that like, oh look, I was right and she was wrong. No, I'm looking at it as, oh my god, I was right about a math question. And she gets so excited, like she starts jumping up and down before she would say, Yes, you got it, right? She'll

Unknown Speaker  16:05  
start, she'll start visibly shaking, like, you did it.

Speaker 1  16:09  
You did it that great job. And that just bolsters me so much to continue on. Just that little bit of great job, honey. You did it. You got the question, right?

Speaker 2  16:20  
Because there was a problem that he worked on it. I worked on it, and I actually tried to talk him out of the way he was doing it. And then when he entered it the way that I was so sure it had to be done, he lost like half a point or something like that. And when he put it in the way that he had understood the problem, he got full credit for it. And it was one of those things where, oh, my God, I should have just shut up and let him talk it through, because he had it. He knew what he was doing. So for someone who has said, you know, I don't want to take math, I'm going to do bad at this. I suck at math. Sucks. Yeah, he says that, but he is actually doing well. And I know he he pointed out a teacher that had made him feel like he wasn't capable of it. I had a teacher in high school who did something similar to me. I struggled with biology, and I was basically told that if I could not handle high school level biology, I had no chance of passing a college level class. So when I started my career path in college, I took college level bio and of course, lab was separate, and I ended up walking away with A's in both both lecture and lab. And it's one of those things where, oh my gosh, I did do it. I can do it. So that's where the whole thing about a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset comes in, and the way I explain this to seven year olds is I tell them that the second they begin a sentence with I can't I tell them their brain basically says, Dude, you can't handle this. It runs off to take a siesta and ta da, you can't do this for

Speaker 1  18:24  
the native, non native Spanish speakers, that means a nap.

Speaker 2  18:30  
Why? Thank you, sir. Um, but I tell the kids, if you say I can't do this now, but I will be able to do this. Or I can't do this yet, or it looks hard, but I'm going to give it my best. That's the growth mindset. And then sure enough, that they can do things and to help them understand the difference, I explain it like this, when rollerblades were like the hot new thing, and I'm not going to tell you what year this was, you can Google that yourself. Um, I was,

Speaker 1  19:05  
look, just because I started with wooden skates, there's no reason to bring up roller blades, all right,

Unknown Speaker  19:10  
well, just because your skates had square wheels.

Speaker 2  19:14  
So I was, um, I was at the University, and a company came out, they brought all these roller blades for people to try and of course, I figured I know how to roller skate. I had managed to stay on ice skates. So obviously, rollerblading must be a combination of the two. So I watched as the rep was showing people how to stop and I noticed everybody fell down, and I decided I'm not going to ask him for help, because I don't want to fall down. So I decided I can't learn from him. Fixed Mindset, and the way I was stopping was I rolled into anything not moving, a tree, the side of his parked. Vehicle. Very painful ways to stop, but that's because I did it to myself. I convinced myself I could not learn from this person, so I was just going to find my own way to stop, um, after, you know, crashing into things that weren't moving. I did, you know, suck it up and go over to ask him to help me. And yes, I fell down. But if I had stuck with it and practice, practice, practice, I'm sure that I would be more proficient on roller blades. Will I put them on now? Heavens No, give me roller skates. Those I comprehend. Inline skates. Yeah, my, my brain just kind of checks out on that.

Speaker 1  20:43  
Once again, for those playing along at home, we've totally gone off on a different tangent, as we like to do here. We

Speaker 2  20:50  
have not gone off on a different tangent. This is all part of the imposter syndrome, where

Unknown Speaker  20:55  
I stand corrected,

Speaker 2  20:59  
but this is all a part of that where people find themselves feeling like they are pretending to be someone that they're not. And I know and I'm just speaking for school teachers, but I know many of us in the education profession are probably feeling like we are not being very good educators right now because we are busy teaching social, socio, social, emotional lessons. We are working on behaviors. We are working on how to treat other people. We're handling everything, but what feels like our actual job, our purpose for being there. And I know there are many of us that at times, probably do feel like imposters, like we have the moniker of teacher, but what we're doing isn't that at all. No,

Speaker 1  21:53  
I've looked at your what you're supposed to teach the bathroom. It's insane that the amount of things that they want you to cover an eight hour sign or eight hour day six, six hour day and just It's mind boggling. See now I have no no delusions at all about that, because I know that I could not be a teacher that has nothing to do with closed mindset. I know that my first mindset, whatever, whatever

Unknown Speaker  22:24  
I'm gonna fix your mindset in a minute. Well, now

Speaker 1  22:30  
look, it's my job to do the announcer voice and the voiceovers, okay, thank you. Stay in your lane.

Speaker 2  22:38  
I'm just gonna get over into this lane right now, because I like it over here. I return you back to his regularly scheduled thought. Thank you.

Speaker 1  22:50  
But I know I don't have, I don't have the temperament to deal with a bunch of those little Rugrats. I couldn't do it. So thank you for all the teachers out there. Thank you to all the people do all the jobs that no one else wants to do. We stand up and hear coffees and cuddles. We salute you. That's all I had.

Speaker 2  23:11  
I was waiting for him to say something else so, you know, so back to where we were on this crazy train ride. Um, you know, if you're feeling like you are someone that you're not, if you feel like you're being an imposter, just know that you are doing the best you can, and there is nothing that you are doing wrong. There is nothing that you need to improve on. You are doing the best job that you can do, and you are the best you that you can be, absolutely

Unknown Speaker  23:49  
my coffee cup is almost empty, so we know what that means.

Speaker 2  23:52  
It means you need more coffee. Yes, always it means I need to take this away from you. No, never well, I've got it in my hand. I'm walking give me my copy. Don't you walk me out of my cup. You give me my coffee. That's

Speaker 1  24:07  
going to wrap it up for this episode, as always, we both appreciate your time very much. We know that you have other things to do with your day, so we thank you for taking the time to listen to us Pratt on about about these things that we think are important. You know, disclaimer that we always give is we're not relationship experts whatsoever. We just talk about what works for us. It may or may not work for you. Your mileage may vary.

Unknown Speaker  24:34  
Let's see I covered that, covered that, covered that. So

Unknown Speaker  24:36  
we appreciate your time. We

Unknown Speaker  24:39  
hope to see you again soon.

Unknown Speaker  24:41  
These are just our two cents worth.

Unknown Speaker  24:43  
Your mileage may vary. Yes, I

Unknown Speaker  24:44  
know I said, there you go. I

Speaker 1  24:45  
know I said that, but I messed up, because it's been so long. We thank you all. We

Unknown Speaker  24:50  
love you all, and God bless.

Unknown Speaker  24:51  
We'll see you soon. Bye. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai