In the latest installment of The Power of Your Personal Brand Series, we’re talking about a topic ALL of our clients experience at some point: Imposter Syndrome. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots – follow and leave a 5-star review!
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The Power of Your Personal Brand Series: Imposter Syndrome and Your Personal Brand
We just launched our new book! You can grab The Power of Your Personal Brand: A Playbook for Struggling Middle Managers Who Want to Do Big Things on Amazon or at ForthRight-People.com
In the latest installment of The Power of Your Personal Brand Series, we’re talking about a topic that inevitably comes up with ALL of our clients at some point: Imposter Syndrome. We’ve all been there, right? And unfortunately, imposter syndrome likes to rear its ugly head time and time again–which is why it’s important to counteract it by applying your Personal Brand. Let’s get into it, with plenty of examples.Here’s a small sample of what you will hear in this episode:
- Why “fake it till you make it” fails
- What made you successful before may not translate directly
- Ongoing practices to keep imposter syndrome at bay
- Holding characteristics on a spectrum
- Stop the chatter and name the voice
And as always, if you need help in building your Strategic Counsel, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at: ForthRight-People.com.
Check out the episode, show notes, and transcript below:
Show Notes
- The Power of Your Personal Brand Series: Imposter Syndrome and Your Personal Brand
- [0:29] Welcome to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business
- [01:21] Imposter Syndrome shows up most for high achievers who are frequently pushing outside their comfort zone
- [02:52] Step 1: stop the chatter and name the voice
- [07:08] Step 2: identify the underlying emotion (fear, worry, doubt) and choose not to believe it
- [08:30] A client stuck between three career paths, learning to stop deciding from fear
- [10:13] April’s coaching example: a client in a culture pushing down high achievers
- [12:24] Holding the paradox: a situation can genuinely be uncomfortable without it meaning you have Imposter Syndrome
- [16:32] Step 3: reposition yourself in the driver’s seat through your personal brand
- [19:22] A client labeled “combative” who learned to dial up curiosity instead of directness
- [21:43] Why “fake it till you make it” fails
- [25:41] What made you successful before may not translate directly
- [28:27] Holding characteristics on a spectrum (“direct but kind”) rather than abandoning what made you good
- [32:16] Step 4: ongoing practices to keep imposter syndrome at bay
- [34:58] April’s practice: a gratitude journal to counter negativity bias
- [37:17] Anne’s example: closing a knowledge gap in finance by proactively learning rather than avoiding the discomfort
- [39:46] April’s example: transferring offices to build quantitative research skills and shut down the gap directly
- [41:28] Recap: stop the chatter, identify the emotion, reposition through Personal Brand, and build ongoing prevention habits
- Make sure to follow Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast spot and leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts
- Learn more at ForthRight-People.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn
What is Strategic Counsel?
Welcome back to Strategic Counsel by ForthRight Business! Looking for Marketing Smarts? You’re in the right place. After almost 4 years of helping to make you savvier marketers, we decided to broaden this podcast to include more business-oriented topics that will make you savvier business leaders.
Thanks for listening Strategic Counsel. Get in touch here to become more strategic.
Transcript
Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
00:01
Welcome to the Strategic Counsel by Forthright Business podcast. If you’re looking for honest, direct, and unconventional conversations on how to successfully lead and operate in business, you are in the right place. In our discussions, we push on the status quo and traditional modes of thinking to reveal a fresh perspective. This unlocks opportunity for you, your team, and your business. Now let’s get to it. Welcome to the Strategic Counsel podcast.
00:31
I am Anne Candido. And I am April Martini. And today we continue our series, The Power of Your Personal Brand. As a reminder, this series is based on our new book, The Power of Your Personal Brand, a playbook for struggling middle managers who want to do big things. And today we’re going to talk about a topic that inevitably comes up with all of our clients at some point and sometimes recurring, which is true of all of us, and that is imposter syndrome. Yes. And we can.
00:58
feel all of you taking a really deep breath as you listen to this one because we’ve all been there. mean, April and I have both been there. It totally, totally happens. And imposter syndrome, it just rears its ugly head time and time again, which is why it’s important to counteract it by applying your personal brand. That’s the key here. That’s what’s gonna make this all different. And a lot of you probably have had…
01:21
other conversations and listen to other podcasts and other sources that told you to do it different ways. Well, this way works. So listen up. Yes. And we see this over indexed, especially in high achieving aspiring leaders, which makes sense, right? Because if you’re a high achiever, you’re constantly leaning into learning and growing, which are both amazing things. But this also means that you’re out of your comfort zone really frequently.
01:49
One of the major, major times imposter syndrome shows up is when you’re outside your comfort zone. So let’s jump into identifying and dealing with imposter syndrome and how to counteract it through the use of your personal brand. All right. So number one sounds easier than it is. Stop the chatter when it starts and call it out for what it is. Your personal brand is essential for you to identify and put to use. should be no surprise that we are saying this because it gives you an objective place and a set of tools to start from.
02:20
And you learn, as you’ve heard us say too, who you are through your characteristics, and then you cultivate your appearance through your behaviors and actions and the ways that you show up, which inherently puts you in the driver’s seat. But before you can get back into your personal brand, it’s so important to recognize when imposter syndrome rears that ugly head. So often with our coaching clients, they come to me, at least on my side, and I’m sure Ann will give her perspective with some very emotional responses. And like Ann said, we’ve been there too. We’ve been in the midst of those emotional responses as well.
02:49
This is totally fine. There’s also confusion about that voice that seemingly comes out of nowhere and is telling each of us all the reasons we’re failing and why we’re not good enough and all of those types of things. And working with my own coach, I have learned to identify that as the super ego, which is that voice that we all hear that tries to get us to play small and protect ourselves. So what do we do about it? It’s like I said, you first tell it that voice.
03:19
this is not real, this is not true. Feel super strange when you first start doing it. But we have to figure out how to get in front of it and stop the emotional response so that you can get back to your personal brand, that place of objectivity and get to work. Yeah. So I think all really well said. So my coach, Kelly, she calls this voice in my head, the saboteur. So there’s a whole series of different classifications for
03:49
all of these call them voices or roles that these, you know, the guides in your head or guides that you kind of sense or whatever, the roles that they play. And so this one is like the saboteur. And I know April has a name for hers, but mine’s George and they, and she does encourage you to name them or her because it helps to personify what is actually kind of going on in your head, right? And so when George starts talking,
04:17
or I can have a conversation with George. And so I asked George, like, why are you coming up right now? Why are you telling me all of these things? I feel like I’m pretty confident in this. I got this for a reason. I’m doing this because it’s aligned with my passions or my big thing. So why are you here? And it’s always there for some reason having to do with a protection. It’s always a protective element of like, oh, don’t go too big because if you go too big, you might fail or
04:46
What business do you have of doing this? Do you even have the right training, the right credibility? So George is the one speaking in my head in those cases and George isn’t real. So I think that is like what April was getting into is that George isn’t real. George, this is a voice in my head. So I have to quietly tell George and sometimes maybe not so quietly, George, I got this. I’m like, you need to go, you need to go sit someplace else. I got this. you know, don’t…
05:14
come here and undermine what I’m trying to do here. And so I feel like it’s really important to name it. That’s been very important for me. It’s been very helpful for me and really start personify it so you can have some distance from it too. And it doesn’t become you. Like it’s not you. So that’s, think, is a really important point. Yeah. And I think just to build on that, think that is right on. And I feel like that ability to separate it
05:43
from yourself was one of the hardest things for me to do in the work, but one of the most beneficial to be able to realize and not just let my thoughts run away with themselves in a non-productive way, but to be able to put that stop to it. So I think talking about your specific George example is amazing. And what’s yours name? So mine’s well, so I never named the super ego. I named my inner child, which is Shelby with the super ego piece, the mean voice.
06:12
my coaches is, you know, as fast as you can shut that down versus Shelby is the one that is the little girl that I need to go back and talk to sometimes. So we’re going to get really deep in it here, guys. This is this is the other. Yeah. The elements. It’s kind of like what Inside Out. Is that the movie? Yes. All the you know, the feelings and stuff. That’s kind of what that’s kind of what this is. But when you do do that, though, to your point, April, you want to be curious about what’s happening because there isn’t.
06:39
It’s just not overtaking or overwhelming all your behaviors and actions in the moment. You could take a break, you could take a breath and you can ask, why is this happening? So. Yes, yes. And actually, I I will. I reference that frequently inside out and inside out, too. And inside out, too, anxiety comes into play as well some other more mature emotions. And that one is a good way to look at more simply, how do you pull all this apart, which is what we’re talking about today. So anyway.
07:08
Big plug for both of those movies. We watch them a lot in our house. Okay, so once we have stopped that chatter and called it what it is and all the ways we just talked about it, the next piece is identifying the underlying emotion that exists and then choosing not to believe it. So we said before, okay, we’re stopping it. saying, know, in Anne’s case, George, go sit in the corner taking care of this, right? But the things that
07:35
when I’m working on this with clients or with myself quite frankly is being able to say, okay, what is like the crux of what is at play here so that I can get back on the path of progress and moving toward my big thing and all of that. So some of the questions that I threw out there are like, is it fear that you can’t do this new thing? Is it anxiety that you’re out of your depth? Is it worry about what people will think of you if you don’t get it exactly right that first time? Is it questioning your worth in this role?
08:03
It can be many things, but the power of identifying that emotion means that you can name it and then decide that you’re not gonna go down that path. You’re gonna lean into the fact that you’re capable and that you can use your personal brand to get through it. And I thought maybe I would give a couple of without names coaching examples of where I’ve worked through this with someone else and I’m sure Anne will have some too. But one of the ones that I have worked with for a couple of years now
08:30
we were trying to decide on career transition. And there were three roles at play. There was promotion in existing company, new company pretty similar to existing company, and then one that was way outside of the bounds of anything that this person had done before. And so we would make some progress and then all of a sudden something would creep in and we would kind of slide backwards.
08:56
And I was watching this happen a few times and we got into everything from this person being in this role with this same company for over a decade, other times that there were people pursuing this person, why we never left and what we identified was this underlying fear. And so when I talk about identifying it and then choosing not to believe it,
09:20
What we had established then was that we would not make any more decisions out of fear. And so as the coach, it became my responsibility. Every time it seemed like a decision wasn’t quite aligned with where I thought this person’s career was gonna head, I would say, is this the fear talking again? And so we were able to get to a place where there was like a column basically of
09:45
things that were not going to be deciding factors anymore because they were all fear based, right? So things like, well, it’s better the devil you know, right? I’m not sure the grass is greener on the other side. This is so far out of the depth of what I’ve experienced before that I’m not quite sure that I made for this, right? So it was turning off that fear and identifying when something was coming up what it was. And ultimately where we got to, which is great, is that the person took the job that was the furthest.
10:13
from what they were doing, walked away from that company that had been in there, you know, they’d been there for over a decade and is now thriving in a brand new environment, able to bring that experience and that really strategic pedigree as well as an outside in perspective to the new company. that’s one. And then the other one that I thought of as I was going through this was we had a coaching client that was in a culture that really was pushing their high achievers down and
10:39
Again, I don’t think this was anything on purpose, but it just was what the culture had become and really trying to put people in a box so that they could kind of manipulate what that person was going to do. And with this person, there was this ingrained belief then that something was ultimately wrong with her because everybody else seemed to be abiding by this culture. And so then there was an erosion of confidence is what we figured out.
11:08
And so we had to start to build from a place of, okay, in these situations, it’s them, it’s not me, it’s them, it’s not me. It’s the culture of this place. And ultimately, and this is where Anne will make fun of me, I’m sure, but this person also left their role to go somewhere else. But getting over the barrier and rebuilding that confidence really helped get her back to a place of her true self, which is typically, I’m confident, I know what I’m doing, and I can achieve anything.
11:35
Those are my two examples to kind of to contextualize what happens when you’re able to identify the emotion underlying the imposter syndrome and then get back on a path. Once you choose, I’m not going to believe that I’m going to move forward. And just as a caveat, April is actually a really good coach. She doesn’t tell everybody to leave their job. I thought you were going to make fun of me for that, but no, I don’t. It was just in the two instances that was what needed to happen.
12:00
Yeah, so I was like, I’m going to coach with April as I’m planning on looking for a new job. That’s not the case. I’m just giving you guys the data here. So I mean, really good examples. The thing I’m going to go back to here is something important to acknowledge because the situation you’re in actually a thousand percent could be true. You could be, you know, gotten to a position.
12:24
that you’re not very comfortable with, maybe that is bigger than you have the capability, understanding or knowledge for. Maybe you are in a new situation where you don’t really know the people and you have to build your reputation. You have to build your credibility from the get-go. All these things could be very true. So when we say that it’s not real, we’re not saying that the situation you’re in isn’t real and shouldn’t be acknowledged. What we’re saying is the voices in your head aren’t real, right?
12:52
Those are, those are something else that’s talking to you. And so what I want you guys to be able to do is hold the paradox in your head that I could be in a situation that could trigger imposter syndrome, but I don’t have to have imposter syndrome about the situation. And we’re going to go talk in the next point about how you can rectify those two things together. But I think it’s a very important thing to understand because if you are always constantly waiting to be ready for something,
13:21
you’re never going to progress into where you feel like you’re ready for in a timing, in a opportunity that is actually going to present itself in a way that’s probably going to be meet the expectations in your head. So that’s the thing that is important to recognize because that’s what holds a lot of people back.
13:43
from kind of leaning in. April talked about the fear. I mean, that is the very real thing that is at the heart of a lot of imposter syndrome is like, I don’t want to get in over my head. I don’t want to take on more than I can chew. I don’t want to be in a position where I could look bad. All of those things. And yes, those, those are very, real fears. But if you’re going to let them rule, then you’re going to be constantly staying stagnant in a position that you’re going to have a possible time to figure out what point you’re ready for that next stage. It’s going to pass you by.
14:13
So not to say don’t have respect for what it takes to be successful. Oh, That’s very, important. But that is how you overcome. And you can hold this paradox in your head of like, yes, I can take a role that I might only be 65 % qualified for. But you know what? I have all of these other things that I believe is going to make me successful so that I can get to a point where I can be impactful in that role as quickly as possible.
14:41
not to preempt the next point, but I just think it’s really important that you can hold the paradox in your head of being in a situation which is extremely uncomfortable, but not having to go to the point that it triggers imposter syndrome. Yeah, I I think it goes back to what we were saying at the beginning, right? That this often ties very much to high achievers. And what you just said is exactly right is as high achievers, us included, we put ourselves in positions all the time to go and do the next big thing that we want to do.
15:11
as part of that, all of those feelings that you mentioned absolutely can happen. It’s just not, like you said, falling into the trap of the imposter syndrome. So I think it’s one of the other things that struck me as you were talking, Ann, is I always try to remind people, don’t go to the like, something is wrong with me, right? Understand that this is something that
15:35
Every high achiever, everyone trying to move forward in their career, everyone that doesn’t choose to just say, you know, I want to sit in this role for the rest of my life. It is all part of it for everybody. So don’t feel like you’re on an island. Feel like you’re actually part of a group of people that this is happening to as well. Yeah, I mean, the uncertainty can be crippling. But if you want to be a high achiever or you are a high achiever, you have to get comfortable with the uncertainty. Exactly.
16:04
And that’s part of the part of the whole aspect of wanting to do the big things. And so, yeah, I totally agree with you. OK, there we go. Look at us. All right. So Anne mentioned the next point, and the next one is being able to reposition yourself to be in the driver’s seat through your personal brand. So I mentioned a couple of points ago, right, that this is really one of the many reasons that Anne and I
16:32
felt so compelled to write the book and feel so strongly about the practice of personal brand is that it does really put you in a position of power. And when I think about this point, what I often internalize or you’re talking about with people is another way that imposter syndrome shows up is when you feel like life is quote unquote happening to you. And so once you call it what it is, you identify the underlying emotion, you choose to move forward with confidence, you have to take a look at how and why you got
17:02
into this situation, and this is where your personal brand can start to help you. So some of the questions to ask are, the characteristics I was leaning into the wrong ones? Am I over under indexing in these characteristics? Why am I not showing up with confidence through my behaviors and actions? Why are people not receiving me the way that I want them to? And so this puts you on the path of leaning into your
17:29
personal brand and being able to move to a more objective place to observe yourself and say, okay, I know what my characteristics are. This is how I’m showing up. This is why I’m feeling this way. What do I need to go and do about it? One of the other things we often suggest people do is asking for feedback from those around you, but using it as data only, as you’ve hopefully have heard us say by now.
17:52
If they’re open enough to give it, don’t react emotionally, hear what is being said and think about it from the perspective of, okay, I’m getting more information to help me get closer to back on the path with my personal brand to getting imposter syndrome out of the way. Caveat here, which you’ve heard me say is only ask for feedback from people you would respect and take advice from and make sure that that data is through the lens of those types of people. Then solving the path forward by deciding how you want to show up.
18:22
and how you wanna lead through your personal brand. We say monitor how you’re doing as you do reposition. So like I said with my questions, if you figure out that one of your characteristics is over firing, how do you pull that back or how do you pull another one in to be able to show up through those behaviors and actions and create the appearance that you want? Keep the feedback loop going with others if you can. And another thing that we often say is communicate that you’re working on this as you’re going through it.
18:52
Some people can’t get comfortable with this totally okay, but it really does take the pressure off to be perfect and get it exactly right, which we said were one of the things that comes up in people’s head around posture syndrome. And it can help you open the door to others so that when they see you start to show up differently, they understand where that’s coming from and they can be part of that journey with you. Another example, and then I will give Ann the floor. So this is not a person that ended up quitting their job, spoiler alert.
19:22
Um, but another client, so this was someone that was struggling in their position and they were given the feedback that they were showing up as being combative. And the comment was made that this had been going on for some time. And as this happens, sometimes in organizations, no one was willing to step up and give this person the feedback. And the response from this person was a bit of shock because they were genuinely really just trying to ask questions.
19:52
And so in doing some investigating, the additional feedback that came through was that the tone was off and not being received well. And ultimately what that meant is the characteristic of directness paired with the questioning was not being heard or received in an organization that just didn’t do well with cutting to the chase that overtly.
20:17
And so the work we did there was to pivot the approach to be heard in a way that the organization was comfortable with. Again, not faking it, not putting on a persona, but dialing back that directness and dialing up the curiosity so that it was more of a tone of, I’m really seeking to understand. I don’t know this. I like to learn. want, you know, I want to be better. I want to do bigger things. And so therefore I’m asking these questions instead of going at it.
20:46
in a questioning way that was not something the organization could take. So, and that person is still at their job. For now. No, don’t say that. You’re right. People are going to stop hiring me. Little imposter. No, I don’t have imposter syndrome. Maybe you’ll get your little niche. Well, I am going to make you come back to the one comment because I know this one always gets you hot because in this case, and then I’ll have something to say, but.
21:15
But in this case, a lot of times people will go to the persona and they’ll fake it till they make it. Why is this not a good idea? I mean, you can’t talk about fake it till you make it when you’re talking about imposter syndrome because you know that’s a natural inclination from just human nature. So maybe you could speak to why that’s not such a good idea. Yes. So all right. I’m going to. Can I borrow the Tidebox for a minute? You can borrow the Tidebox. OK, I give it to you. So all right.
21:43
So another reason we feel very compelled about the, or very strongly about the way that we do personal brand is because of the advice, fake it till you make it, which I hate in my face, I’ll get very red even though none of you can see me, because it encourages someone to don a persona, which is the opposite of the authenticity of personal brand. It’s completely inauthentic.
22:05
And so when people say things like, fake it till you make it, go mirror that person. If you could just be more like this other person over here, all of that is terrible advice. What is valuable advice is to take the time to truly understand your personal brand, those characteristics at your core, what makes you you, all your experiences, values, the way you were raised.
22:27
where you live, all these different things that comprise really those characteristics that are so ingrained in you and do the work to figure out a different way to show up authentically through your personal brand instead of faking it till you make it. How’d I do? You did great. I was happy to give you my Tidebox for that. Okay, good. Yeah, I mean, but it’s such an important point because
22:52
This part of imposter syndrome, don’t think is necessarily something that people consider or think about when they think about imposter syndrome, but it does like these triggering moments will start to give you those doubts, right? Where it’s like, oh, maybe I don’t belong here. Maybe this isn’t the place for me. Maybe I’m not as good as I thought I was, or what’s wrong with me going back to what April had said before. these are some situations where you might be starting to kind of instill some of that.
23:21
And I think it’s really important. And what April says is that this is an exercise where you have to go external to be able to internalize what is going on. Right. So you’re not fixing it externally. You’re fixing it internally, but you’re you need the data externally. And this is about the situational awareness, which is so critically important, especially when you get into a new position or a new role or a new atmosphere or a new company, whatever that new like environment looks like to you.
23:50
But it’s also the self-awareness of understanding, hmm, they’re probably going to be expecting a different experience of me in this new situation than maybe I haven’t had to do in the past. Yes. Right. And that is really the underlying thing here, people, is that the expectations are different. They just are. So you should go into these new situations, understanding that already and starting to kind of think about, hmm, for myself, what…
24:19
do these people then, what is this new experience going to demand of me? Like what kind of experience do I need to then, through my personal brand, be able to display or how do wanna show up in order to be successful here? Because it may not be what’s made me successful before. And so when you can start to think about it through the lens, you can start then to really hone in on, as April said, those characteristics that are like, okay, so my situation before.
24:45
I was required to be more direct. The culture was a much more transparent culture. This one, not so much. These people like it a little bit softer. That doesn’t mean I can’t be direct, but I better figure out a different way of being able to convey what I’m thinking because if I do it the way that I used to do it, I’m not gonna get my agenda fulfilled. I am not gonna be effective in my communication because they’re just not gonna be able to hear me. That has nothing to do about whether or not you’re good at the job.
25:12
It has nothing to do with whether or not you’re ready for this job. It has everything to do with how you’re showing up in order to be able to provide the experience of you that is needed in this situation. Yeah, I mean, I think that that’s really well said. And one of the other pieces, as I’m thinking about career transitions with people, I’m really shooting myself in the foot here. Yeah, you just keep taking that that streak. I keep putting it out and you keep taking it.
25:41
just recurred to me as you were talking that one of the things that we do work on, whether it is changing jobs or elevating to a different job, like you were referencing Ann or, you know, whatever that looks like, you’re making a pivot, you’re making a change. One of the things that I do work with people on is thinking through what you just said, Ann, before you even get into the position in order to evaluate proactively things like what you said.
26:10
I, you know, and you don’t always know these things, but you know, I remember when I went from interbrand and Dayton to curiosity, it was in Dayton. It was like, you better speak your mind. You better be the smartest one. You better be very clear in your communication. You better be 15 steps ahead. Right. When I got to curiosity, it was, Hey, we’re hiring you because you know how to do something we don’t know how to do, but you got to fit the culture first. You can’t come in here and lay down a hammer. And all I’ve been doing was laying down the hammer for two years. Right. So.
26:39
Cause I worked in that situation. Cause I worked in that situa- it worked beautifully. I had a lot of success in that role. That wasn’t going to be at all helpful. I would have never ever been able to figure out my way at Curiosity if I had continued to do that. And so just my point here is what we often work on in these transition moments is
27:02
Okay, so let’s just assume what got you here isn’t gonna get you there because that’s almost always the case, right? You have to make some kind of transition for yourself, whether it’s I’m a leader for the first time or I’m starting at this new culture, whatever it is, and spend the time to define what that means and how you will show up as a result of that if you can. Like I said, not always possible. At the very least though, it should be in your head.
27:29
that you may need to rethink your personal brand professionally in the way that you were in that previous role or at that previous job for the new one. And there might need to be some change. Yeah, prepare yourself for data because you’re going to get a lot of data and that’s what it is. It’s data and it’s data that’s reflecting your behaviors and actions, not who you are at your core. So again, we’ve talked about that before about differentiating it to in this understanding your characteristics are manifesting in your parents and behaviors and actions. People are going to make
27:57
insinuations based on how you’re showing up. So if you’re just mindful and self-aware in taking in the data, you can make these adjustments very quickly. And I wanted to bring up another point, April, that I think is really important because the other thing that we hear from a lot of coaching clients is like, but that’s what makes me good. You know, you get in those roles and you’re just killing it. And you’re like, that’s what made me good. Getting in there and telling everybody the way, you know, how I think or
28:27
you know, being the decisive person in the room and, you know, having everything solved before you even walk out of the meeting. Like, that’s what made me good. That’s what made you good in that situation. what makes you good in the next situation is being able to be flexible in the way that you’re exercising your characteristics. Because I bet there’s other characteristics besides that that will also make you successful in this new role that might require something totally different.
28:54
And again, you can hold paradoxes in your mind and be able then to exercise them on a scale. So you can be direct but kind, right? You can be the size of- Just don’t be nice. No, not nice kind. You can be authoritative, but still listen. Right? So just think about it on a spectrum as like, you know, this old position required me to be a little bit more authoritative. This one might require me to be more, you know, the listen, at least initially.
29:24
And then I can work in more of that authoritative nature, but you have to hold the paradoxes in your brain again and realize it’s a recipe. We talk about that in the book. There’s a characteristics recipe that you have to pull these characteristics and really determine what experience of you based on those characteristics is going to be what is needed in this situation. And it might not even be globally everywhere. It might be at certain moments with certain people in certain situations.
29:50
And I know that sounds like a lot, but once you start becoming very self-aware, it clicks super, super fast. You could start to sense, oh, this person, I understand who this person is. I need to call upon these ones. And it happens instantaneously when you become more self-aware of what’s going on. So that helps to keep those, those doubts at bay. It helps you to keep that power as April said, because you’re operating from a position of knowing who you are and then being able to express that in a way that people are going to be able to appreciate.
30:21
Yes, and oh, by the way, when you start to show up consistently in your own authentic way, it actually does help keep the imposter syndrome at bay because you’re in your flow and then your confidence builds and you’re like, oh yeah, I do have this. I am good at this. I do, you know, it’s why we talk about your personal brand being a toolkit, right? So that you can flex those different characteristics. It’s not a one trick pony thing. It’s lots of different things that you can bring into the mix and weave in and out to make you successful.
30:51
Yeah, I I noticed it when I saw when I left PNG. I mean, I spent 20 years at PNG and I’m like, I really questioned. was like, dang, is what I learned at PNG really going to be helpful when I go into this new role? Or is it going to be like so like in just in that isolated vertical that it’s not going to be beneficial at all? And I mean, it took some time to kind of practice those those principles that I felt were important in order to build the business upon and realize in practice.
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being very intentional about how I was using them that yeah, they do work. Like they do work. So what I learned has been very beneficial, but there was that point of imposter syndrome where I’m like, okay, now I’m going to go do this all on my own. don’t have a support team behind me to kind of check me. And so it’s very daunting and very intimidating. And I see now other people who leave PNG and they’re going through the same part in their head where they’re like, oh,
31:47
Do people even really, really care about these things that I learned at PNG? And they’re going to just think everybody knows this, right? And so, no, that’s not the case. And so you have to put things into practice. You have to try them out. You have to like move forward in order to get through your posture syndrome. But I think that’s, mean, really important just to kind of consider that too. It’s like transitional. It’s transitional in nature too. Yep. Give yourself grace. Okay. So
32:16
The final place we wanted to talk about regarding imposter syndrome is there are ways to get it to stay at bay. we just identified, right, when you’re really working hard in your personal brand and you’re making it work for you and you’re showing up the way you want to, right, that flow works really well. Some of the other things we talk about is
32:38
that it’s not ever gonna go away for good. I hate to tell everybody. It’s just one of those things, especially like we said for high achievers or anyone moving forward, making change, building their career, all of those things, it does come up. So there is nothing that I, we can say or give you to completely say, and then you’ll never have imposter syndrome again. It’s not realistic. But there are some things you can do.
33:02
to keep a pulse on how you’re doing and where you might be vulnerable and get in front of things before you end up in that life is happening to me space. So one of the really simple things is checking in with yourself on a regular basis. There’s an exercise that I’m sure everybody’s heard me say. It’s super simple. It’s just spending a few minutes, a few times a week, really reflecting on how you’re showing up.
33:29
And it’s as granular as what are three times I showed up really well this week today? What are three times I did not? Or what am I feeling at the end of each day and why? And really just being honest and authentic with yourself and using that as data so that you can see, well, every Tuesday afternoon, I feel completely diminished and I
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kind of have this sense of, know, I just want to be done with the day. Oh, well, I have this recurring meeting that I’m supposed to lead. And as I look back on it, I’m disappointed in the way that I’m showing up or it goes off the rails every time, fill in the blank, right? So that you can work on things as they come up before anything becomes bigger than it needs to be. So that’s one of the things that we talk about with folks. Again, the feedback comes in here.
34:28
We’re really big fans of feedback loops. So with those people that you trust, that you loop into the fact that you’re doing this work, or as you get into new roles and new companies, finding those people, getting in the habit of asking for receiving feedback as data, and then also doing the same for other people so that that conversation is continuous and ongoing. And again, doesn’t become overly daunting. Another thing is spending time just reflecting in general. So not specific to your job, not specific to your day-to-day work.
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but finding out ways that you can sit with yourself and be quiet and just reflect on where you are, how you’re doing, what you’re feeling in general. And this can be things like journaling, creating a space where you feel comfortable sitting quietly, going on a long walk, going for a run, having a glass of wine. Yes, these are all things that I’ve instituted for myself. The point is just to spend time with yourself away from the doing of the job.
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and that trying to achieve to really re-center and stay in touch with yourself at a deeper level. I will say that this was a very hard thing for me to do. I am notorious for being a human being versus a, or human doing versus human being. I have learned to successfully sit with myself quietly and like myself. That was a journey in and of itself. But one of the things that I have started just as a tip of something to try within the past few months is a gratitude journal. So,
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someone that knows me very well gifted this to me. And I’d also been around that time reading some stuff about how human nature skews inherently negative if we’re trying to protect ourselves. So if we go back to all that voice conversation at the beginning, if we think about how humans started, right, you really did have to protect yourself and like find food and all of those kinds of things. So there just is this part of us that’s always there trying to protect. And what that often skews to is
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negativity. And so not that I do the gratitude journal every day, I will tell on myself. It’s not I trying very hard to get there. But four or five days a week, it’s only a few minutes, but it’s taking time to answer the prompt to jot down what I’m grateful for from the day before what I’m looking forward to for the day to come. And you know, sometimes there’s like bigger reflections over the course of every other week or month. But being able to just reposition my brain.
36:48
to place of being thankful to start the day is a really good spot for someone like me who is a fixer, likes problems, likes to get in there and solve for things to ultimately think about the things that I don’t have to fix that I really like and just putting myself in that space of being grateful. All good examples and all good suggestions. For me, use my own personal sense because I mean, I was at P &G for 20 years and
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imposter syndrome can run rampant there. But I think the key to getting through it and to keeping it at bay, I mentioned a little bit in my last example, is to put action to it. So understanding where there are gaps and recognizing, okay, well, I guess there is a gap. I remember being invited to go sit in or be part of our weekly, I don’t remember what we even called them, but call them like the team meetings.
37:44
where it was represented by all the cross functions. And I realized getting in there and I was like, they were talking significantly about the finances. I’m like, I don’t really understand the finances. And I’m not sure I could be very effective in these meetings if I don’t understand the finances. So I could have taken that one of two directions. Could have just like begged out of the meetings or sat there and not said anything and not contributed it. Or what I did, which was I went to one of the finance guys and I had him teach me all about financing.
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I spent an hour, I bought him lunch. He took me through a PNL. He took me through a balance sheet. He told me what’s important for the business. And then once I got some of that foundation, I was able to go in and then start to learn and develop my expertise from there. So it’s all about like closing the gaps, closing the gaps about where you understand that you’re lacking the information, the knowledge, the capability, whatever that looks like. A lot of times when we get promoted, we get a broader scope of
38:39
of people and responsibility than we were trained for. I mean, it’s not uncommon for salespeople to get marketing folks once they get to a certain level or when you get to about a VP, maybe you’re doing new business development as well as innovation. And you’re like, I’ve never done innovation before. I’ve always been in a new business development side. Close the gap. Understand what you think you need to understand or know or the expertise you need to get in order to be able to close the gap. And that helps them to give some action
39:09
to whatever could trigger that sense of imposter syndrome so that you could quickly acclimate versus kind of simmering in the, don’t know this, how am supposed to know this? I feel like totally like a fish out of water. You could feel like that for a little bit. Everybody’s gonna feel like that for a little bit. But then you quickly need to transition to how do I close the gap then? What do I need to know? Who do I need to bring in? Who do I need to consult? And sometimes that’s an investment guys, but it’s well worth the investment.
39:39
in order to be able to show up in a powerful way. So make it an investment in yourself. Yeah, I think that’s really good. Like as you were talking, I was remembering the reason I went to Interbrand Dayton specifically was I was in a brand strategy role. I had been trained to facilitate. all the qualitative stuff I felt really good about, really comfortable in. But anytime anyone would hand me data, like quantitative findings, I would have the same reaction you had, right?
40:08
Like I barely know enough to be dangerous. We didn’t have quant folks in the Cincinnati office. And I was like, I have to do something about this because every time this happens, I panic. And so I took a transfer to the Dayton office to bring brand strategy to that office, but to be able to understand enough about how quantitative research happens.
40:32
in order to then have that same level of confidence of how to use that level of data. And I will say, like some of it was painful, right? Like I had to learn skip patterns for writing surveys. Like they were like, the best things to do is to actually write the survey yourself and not like we had quant, true quant people, right? So I could go back and be like, Hey Joe, I probably didn’t do this great, but can you help me? Right. And how to, how does skip patterns work? And if they answer this one versus this one, you know, and all of those things. And I probably got into it deeper than I ever needed to, but that
41:02
completely shut down that imposter syndrome once I was like, oh, I just needed to learn something new enough to be dangerous and then tap in the experts if I couldn’t do it as more of the generalist. So I think the action piece is huge. Yeah, I think that’s a really great example. I totally agree with that. All right. So we have covered top to bottom imposter syndrome. So quick reminder here, what are the things you’re going to do when you start to feel it?
41:28
First, stop the chatter when it starts and call it what it is. Yes, this does feel a little awkward the first few times you do it. I was even encouraged at one point to stand in front of the mirror and say it to my reflection. That was super awkward, but it actually did help. And I’m actually encouraging my son to do that now, who’s, it’s not imposter syndrome, but from an anxious standpoint to stop that loop happening, it’s similar. Identifying the emotion that’s below that.
41:53
So what is it? What do we, and usually you’ll see, and you heard her plea in our examples that there’s usually a pattern, right? Like fear of change that’s been deeply embedded for a long time. Oh, that’s when I get imposter syndrome, when I think about making a change, right? So identify that emotion and decide that you’re not gonna follow it down that path, that you’re actually gonna do what you need to do, which means repositioning yourself to be in the driver’s seat through your personal brand, taking that toolbox if you haven’t already identified it.
42:21
buy the book, do the work to figure out what is your personal brand and then learn how to activate it to flex back and forth between characteristics to identify ones that are working, not working and to be able to show up the way that you want to. And then the final one is doing some work to prevent imposter syndrome. No, you’re not gonna ever be able to never have it again. I really can not say that with any level of confidence unless you just decide you don’t wanna move forward in life really, which is a drastic statement. But do things for yourself, check in.
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spend some time outside of the work you do, whatever you need to do in order to know what’s going on with it inside yourself and what you need each day so that you don’t get to a point where imposter syndrome takes over and life is happening to you. And with that, we will say, buy the book. If you don’t have it, The Power of Your Personal Brand, a playbook for struggling middle managers who want to do big things. You can get it on Amazon. If you are in Cincinnati, you can now buy it at Joseph Beth.
43:18
booksellers. are carrying it on their shelves. Super exciting and proud moment for us. There’s also a link on our website, ForthRight-People.com. We also have an accompanying workbook on there and an initial assessment so that you can see how closely aligned or have you identified your personal brand to even get started. And with that, we will encourage you to take at least one powerful insight you heard today and put it into practice. Hopefully you heard lots of them, because remember, strategic counsel is only effective if you put it into action.
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Did we spark something with this episode that you want to talk about further? Reach out to us through our website, ForthRight-People.com. We can help you customize what you have heard to move your business and make sure to follow or subscribe to Strategic Counsel on your favorite podcast platform!