Who Am I Not To? A Mindset Shift to Overcome Imposter Syndrome

Have you ever looked around your business, your dream, your life and thought: “Who am I to be here?”

Yeah. Me too.

This episode is a raw, real, and honest repurposed interview from when I was a guest on the Go Getters Podcast with my southern soul sister, Kayse Morris. And we’re tackling something that every single entrepreneur deals with—Imposter Syndrome.

You know that voice—the one that says:

• You’re not good enough.
• Someone else is already doing it.
• What if you fail?
• Who do you think you are?

I’ve been there. And in this conversation, I share the exact mindset shift that helped me silence that voice and finally start moving forward with boldness.

Instead of asking, “Who am I to…?”

I began asking, “Who am I not to?”

Let that sit for a moment.

👆 That right there became my daily reminder: I was born for this.

Not because I had all the answers, funding, experience, or confidence.

But because I was willing to show up, learn as I went, and take action even when I was terrified.

You’ll also hear me share:

• The weight of being a first-generation Latina entrepreneur
• What it felt like to wear “imposter syndrome” like a varsity jacket
• How being scared is actually a sign you’re doing something big
• Why confidence isn’t a prerequisite—it’s a result of consistent action

If you’ve ever doubted yourself, this is your pep talk in podcast form.

Let’s throw off the jacket of fear, stop waiting for permission, and remind ourselves that we were made for more.

Click play to hear all of this and:

[00:59] Why imposter syndrome hits harder than we expect—and how to define it in a way that resonates.

[02:24] My "varsity jacket" analogy that perfectly illustrates how imposter syndrome lingers.

[03:19] The mindset shift that changed everything: “Who am I not to do this?”

[03:39] Does confidence come naturally? Jasmine sets the record straight (and shares her hilarious “lawyer from birth” story).

[05:10] Why being scared doesn’t mean you’re not ready—it means you’re doing something meaningful.

[06:50] My advice for entrepreneurs still waiting to feel “ready.”

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For full show notes, visit jasminestar.com/podcast/episode537

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Transcript

Rosy Shephard 00:00:00  Hey there and welcome to this special episode of The Jasmine Star Show. This is Rosie. Customer success manager for social curator. And today we're doing something a little different, bringing you a powerful conversation from a past episode that was just too good not to share again. In this episode, we're revisiting an interview from when Jasmine was a guest on the Go Getters podcast. Jasmine dives deep into a topic that every entrepreneur faces at some point. Imposter syndrome. That nagging voice that whispers, who am I to do this? Or what if I'm not good enough? Yeah, we're talking about that. But here's the thing. Jasmine shares a mindset shift that changes the game. Instead of asking, who am I to do this? What if we asked, who am I not to? So if you've ever felt self-doubt creeping in, if fear has held you back, or if you just need a pep talk to remind you that you are more than capable. This episode is for you. Let's dive in.

Kayse Morris 00:00:59  It's a syndrome that I didn't know I had until I had heard about it.

Kayse Morris 00:01:03  And I thought, man, this is me, and it's all about imposter syndrome. You know, it's the thing where we're not good enough. We feel like we don't deserve everything that we have achieved in life. And, Jasmine, do you have you ever felt that in your business when you first got started, or do you still encounter it sometimes?

Jasmine Star 00:01:24  So just to expand the definition of the imposter syndrome, because 100% I cosign on your definition. But one thing that really resonated with me when I had read the definition, it was wondering why me and or who am I to do this thing when there are other people more qualified, richer, better looking, funnier, wittier, and more popular? And we often ask ourselves these questions who am I to? And then fill in the blank like, who am I to have a podcast? And who am I to pick up a camera? And who am I to sell essential oils? And who am I to teach teachers? And the question that I have to ask myself whenever this ugly dragon rears its head is, who am I not to? Who am I not to have a podcast? Who am I not to speak my truth? Who am I not to be okay? And enough in this moment to pursue the thing that I want to do? Who am I not? But before I stand like I'm on a tiny soapbox in like, arena, it's.

Jasmine Star 00:02:24  This is an imposter syndrome that is like a varsity letterman's jacket that I wear far too often. And I graduated that school. I graduated high school. Why am I still putting on this varsity jacket of the impostor syndrome with the big, you know, emboldened letters over the right side of my chest? Is why the imposter syndrome, I don't know. It's perhaps that I am the daughter of an immigrant. I'm a first generation Latina. You know, I didn't learn to read till I was 11. I didn't know a single person in my entire life when I was 25 years old. And I said, I want to start a business. And I couldn't know a single person in my sphere who had started a business. I think that when you when you come from a land of lack and want, you only ever see the horizon of lack and want, and that when you only see the world from that perspective. The imposter syndrome isn't a varsity jacket. It's like a second set of skin that you wear.

Jasmine Star 00:03:19  And it wasn't until I gave myself the permission to shed the fear and step into the thing that I wanted that oh wow. The more I did, the more action I took, the less fear and the less questioning that I had. It's just do you dare yourself and believe in yourself enough to dream and step into it and start doing?

Kayse Morris 00:03:39  Amen. Do you feel like have you always been this confident in like how you are and how you run your business? Or when you started? Did you have those voices and how loud were they? Because for me, they were are still very, very loud. My business has just recently taken off, probably in the last eight months substantially. And it's always there, but I'm learning how to quiet the noise per se. So have you always been this good or has it been a learned awareness?

Jasmine Star 00:04:08  I mean, I kind of am just wanting to mute this mic because I'm, like laughing on the inside. It's funny, they say. Have you always been this good? And I'm looking around and I was like, oh, who else is Casey interviewing in this podcast right now? Because I know she ain't talking about me.

Jasmine Star 00:04:20  I know when she says, that's good. I was like, really? I should also be 100% real and let people know that I came out of the womb and I told my mom, here's a couple things you could do better next time. It's just how I speak. I speak with like this level of authority. I was one of those nine year old precocious kids whose parents, you know, friends would come over to my parents house and then I would tell them advice I don't even know where it came from is like when I told my parents that I was going to law school. Everyone's just like, well, obviously like, look at the way that you speak. It was just like, you know, arguing for arguing sake, not out of like, venom or malice. It was just, I have a case and I'm going to present it to you. And so it's like when I think I could stand on the stage or when I think you and I have a conversation, I think I come across as being confident in a proportion that is not actually accurate.

Jasmine Star 00:05:10  So, you know, I am on my ninth meeting of today. So it is, you know, later in the afternoon out here in California, and I feel like my soul has taken a beating because I feel excited at this option of promise. And I feel excited at this option of growth. And right behind that emotion is that ugly and nasty emotion of overwhelm and doubt. Like, I've literally made it up as I've gone on to get to this point. Why should I be afraid to continue making it up as I go and learning the ropes? Why don't I just embrace it and say, hey girl, this is the entrepreneur journey. Like, get used to it, buck up buttercup. And yet I don't, you know, I've been doing this now 13 years and I am more excited and more elated and more afraid because there's more on the line. So does it go away? No. But just yesterday I had a conversation with somebody on my team and I said, I want to be scared.

Jasmine Star 00:06:11  If I'm not scared, I'm not dreaming big enough. So when you give me the option of two choices and you tell me one, I choose fear. Because choosing fear is the ticket to growth. And that's where I'm at. So no, I'm not always confident. No, I come across as being a heck of a lot more confident than I often feel, but the decision and how I've been able to grow so fast is because I choose to be scared.

Kayse Morris 00:06:37  I love it so much. You're speaking to my soul right here, right now. Just hired a team of myself. Two girls full time and so funny. We've had some big turn of events this last few weeks where we've just been building, building, building, and we're starting to see, like, this amazing growth and amazing accomplishment for all that we've been doing for the past few months. And my girls had said to me, they said, Casey, you acted like you knew it was going to happen all along. And I said I did, and they said, well, we didn't know.

Kayse Morris 00:07:00  Like we're following you aimlessly going, we hope this works. And I said, well, there is no other option for me. It is fight or flight right now. So we will keep growing and we will keep dreaming big. And as long as you all believe in me, then I hope you're here for the ride. Because I know, I now know, like even though the fear creeps in, as you said, and it does more so for me, I'm sure, than it even does for you. Just because I'm so young into this journey, I have to keep looking forward and just knowing that it's all going to work out. And those voices inside of my head have to get louder, I guess, to make me stop. And I hope they never do.

Jasmine Star 00:07:35  Yes and amen.

Kayse Morris 00:07:38  Already preaching. You were preaching on that kajabi stage when I saw you, sister. It was so good. I enjoyed it so much.

Jasmine Star 00:07:46  Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Kayse Morris 00:07:48  You're welcome.

Kayse Morris 00:07:48  All right. So let's chat a little bit about the difference there. There are people that are listening to this and think, man. And you said you do speak with authority. That's a great way to describe it. And I love how you said like I was just born that way. But there are some people that are listening to this podcast that feel that they have that voice, that what you're saying, they feel it, they feel like they are there, but they're not owning it. They're not really going past the point of I hear the voices. I believe in myself, but I'm just not there yet. And they get stuck. They get stuck on this hamster wheel of despair, as I like to say, where they don't move forward in their business. They've bought the courses. They have, you know, learned how to sell their teaching resources online, but they're not willing to take it to the next level because they're letting all those other things creep in. What would you say to them?

Jasmine Star 00:08:38  The voices don't go away until you shut them out like so.

Jasmine Star 00:08:42  You can sit here and entertain, like, quite often. Let's be real. Like many people enjoy having the conversations with fear, and they love sitting across from doubt and pouring down a cup of tea and saying, tell me all the things that are going to go wrong. We invite it. There's a part of us because our brains, our human brains, are hardwired for protection. It's like from our Neanderthal ancestors. It's like we are programmed for safety. And so we enjoy listing all the reasons why it's not going to work, because it's keeping us safe. So once we know everything, then we'll be safe. And then once we know what other people are going to say about us, and then we're okay with their opinions, then we're safe. But all you're doing is procrastinating under the auspices of perfection, right? We want this perfect course, and we want to say the perfect thing on social media, and we want to have the perfect opt in, and we want to have the perfect podcast.

Jasmine Star 00:09:35  And guess what? Perfection is a myth. Perfection is entirely subjective. What you think will be perfect. You can put it on the internet and the market thinks it's trash and something you just like, toss out and say, oh, this is just, you know, this terrible thing that I'm just going to put out because I have nothing else. And then you get this massive response. And the market said that was perfect. Why? It's subjective and perfection is just procrastination in disguise. That's what it is. So we're sitting here intoxicated, sitting across the bar from our greatest fears and our darkest doubts. And we love it. It isn't until you look around and say, I'm tired of sitting in this dusty bar on this broken chair, listening to people who don't care about me. And you get up and you walk out and you keep on walking. That is the only. And what I mean, walking. Let's take this analogy and be real doing the work, because you can always go back to the bar.

Jasmine Star 00:10:30  Bar will always be there. Stop drinking. Get sober. Start walking.

Kayse Morris 00:10:34  Amen to that. Listen, I'm a former English teacher, so any analogy that you can throw at me, I am going to linger on every single word that you say. Oftentimes, though, I'm rarely left where I'm speechless and like, how can I ask her, like a bigger and better question? And how is she going to like, beat what she just said before? But you keep doing it. Like every time I ask you a question, I'm like, well, that answer was even better than the one before and that one before. So I'm excited that we're like halfway through the interview and it's just going to keep getting better from here.

Jasmine Star 00:11:00  Well, now I want to start setting that bar real low. Real low under, you know, over like under-promise and overdeliver. Okay. What's the next one? What's the next?

Kayse Morris 00:11:08  All right. So when you're ready like so we've gotten over the fear. Now we're moving on to all right.

Kayse Morris 00:11:14  We are feeling a little bit confident. We've had that conversation.

Jasmine Star 00:11:17  Crazy. No crazy. Ain't nobody listening over the fear. I'm not over the fear. So if we start having this conversation, like, okay, we're over the fear. Really? Like, really we're over it. Who hears over it? The true warriors are the people who feel the fear and do it anyway. So we should not be posturing. I can't, there are people who can or truly over there fear. I am never over my fear. And the minute I am feeling pretty good about myself, when I'm feeling myself like Beyonce, I immediately say, what can I add to make me feel the fear? Because the fear is what makes me hungry, and the fear is what keeps me up at night. And the fear is what drives me in the morning. And the fear means I'm standing in my purpose, so I don't ever think we're going to be at the point where we're past the fear. How about we say, okay, so we've identified the fear and we're going to do it anyway.

Jasmine Star 00:12:04  Now what?

Kayse Morris 00:12:05  What's next? So once we get there, we are there. And I love everything that you just said. I'm trying to process it all and take it all in and we start putting ourselves out there. This is when the fear comes back in waves and forms because we put ourselves out there. Our listeners, many, many of them, have sat back because they've said to themselves, I'm just a teacher, I so funny, the very first conversation I ever had with James Wedmore, I had to ask him so many questions about my business, and he was like, he was like, on top of everything I said, he was like limiting belief. That's not going to work. You know, we were just going through all these different things. And I said, I think I'm the small town southern girl from Georgia, and I'm just a teacher. And he just wiped all of these limiting beliefs that I had straight out the window. But I still have them. They're still there and they still live in me.

Kayse Morris 00:12:51  And there's still all these things that I'm trying to overcome because I've never been around people that are in this world that we are in. Now, as an entrepreneur, and to me it's intimidating and I have pushed past it. I have gone out there, have put myself out there, and then there's the 1%, right? The 1% that comes back to us. And it's like this vicious cycle where we feel it all over again. So for my students, they put that resource out there. They get on that Instagram story, they finally start that Facebook page, and then someone leaves them a review and they are right back to square one. And my job is to figure out now, how can I make them get back on the saddle without feeling like they're stuck? And that's where I'm at. So help me help them.

Jasmine Star 00:13:38  It is not your responsibility to fix somebody. Doubt you are just there to highlight them, to highlight that is the greatest gift that you can give anybody is to call them to the carpet.

Jasmine Star 00:13:49  And, you know, it's like when I hear you talk, I think that you talk without being Cognizant of the preface of just the word just is really deceiving in the in like English vernacular. I'm just a teacher from a small town area, and I think to myself, if you were just to remove the word just, what would that look like? I am a teacher. Wow. That's powerful. People wake up and they dream of being a teacher in a classroom, on a stage, on YouTube. They dream of that. And if we just removed the qualifier of just. You stand in a place of power. I'm from a small town. Amazing. You are qualified to speak to a group of people who listen to you, think like you and hear from you. All of these things are places of power if we just take out any sort of qualifier. So when we know because it's not a matter of if, if anybody's listening and they're like, I've never gotten a negative review. I started a Facebook group and had 400 people out the gate.

Jasmine Star 00:14:54  It is not a matter of if. It's a matter of when. Somebody will knock the wind out from you. You will get punched so hard in the stomach that you're just like, who are these people? And where do they dwell on the internet? It will happen once and it will happen a hundred times, and it will happen a thousand times, and it will happen 100,000 times. The difference between me and you and anybody else is the fact that we remain undaunted, that we will get punched in the stomach and say, still I rise, that somebody will say wild and lying and disparaging things about us and say, still I rise, that our family can talk behind our backs and it gets word from us like a second cousin who said, my momma said what? And still we rise. Because the only difference between the victor and the person who lays on the ground is that one decided to get back up. So our only objective and you as a coach and as a visionary, isn't your job to fix somebody or to say you shouldn't have doubts.

Jasmine Star 00:15:52  Your job is to say, okay, I hear you. I'm a shoulder. I can listen and I can give advice. But it's you. That's it. That's the greatest gift that you can give somebody is. I believe in you. I'm standing. Do you want to stand next to me?

Rosy Shephard 00:16:09  Did you feel that? That fire, that motivation that I can take on the world energy? Because same imposter syndrome doesn't disappear overnight. But like Jasmine said, the only way to quiet the noise is to keep moving forward, to do the thing even when you're scared. So here's my challenge for you. What's one thing you've been putting off because of self-doubt? Go take action on it today. And if this episode resonated with you, send it to a friend who needs to hear it too, because we're all in this together. Until next time, keep showing up. Keep dreaming big. And most importantly, keep choosing courage over fear. See you soon.