253. How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome in 3 Easy Step with Chris Do

Have you ever felt like you're just one mistake away from everyone realizing you're not as good as they think you are? If so, you're not alone. That nagging feeling is known as imposter syndrome, and it's something that affects over 80 percent of entrepreneurs at some point in their careers. In this blog post, we're going to dive deep into what imposter syndrome is, how it can hold you back, and most importantly, how you can overcome it using a practical three-step process. With insights from Emmy Award winner Chris Do, we'll explore the mindset shifts necessary to defeat imposter syndrome and reclaim your confidence.

Links Mentioned:

• productiveinsights.com/membership
  
  
  

Timestamp:

00:00 Introduction to Imposter Syndrome

00:34 Understanding Humility and Its Impact

02:31 The Professional World and Self-Perception

04:08 The Cost of Underestimating Yourself

05:12 Building Confidence: Practical Steps

06:01 Visualizing Success: The Noah Lyles Example

07:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Ash Roy's and Chris Do's Video Transcript (This transcript has been auto-generated. Artificial Intelligence is still in the process of perfecting itself. There may be some errors in transcription):

Ash Roy:

Ever felt like you're just one mistake away from everyone realizing you're not as good as they think you are? That's imposter syndrome. And let me tell you, if you've ever felt that way, you're in good company. Over 80 percent of entrepreneurs suffer from imposter syndrome. So today we're going to break down imposter syndrome, what it is and how you can overcome it and reclaim your confidence using a three-Step approach.

And throughout this video you'll hear from Chris Do, an Emmy Award winner who explains the mindset shifts necessary to beat imposter syndrome. Chris Do explains that imposter syndrome is often correlated to something most of us and have been taught to value in society. And that is humility.

Chris Do:

If we start to investigate what the word humble means and then we start to look at imposter syndrome, there are a lot of correlations between that.

Ash Roy:

Right?

Chris Do:

And as I'm. I see myself as an artist and I work with a lot of people in the creative community. One of the biggest things that they suffer from is imposter syndrome.

They don't value themselves. They don't see what they're doing as, as worthy of being paid for. And it really attacks their own self confidence and their self-esteem.

Ash Roy:

Now, Chris highlights an important point. Sometimes what we call humility is actually an internal struggle with imposter syndrome. Here's what he had to say about the problem with being humble in business.

Chris Do:

If you look up the definition of humility or to be humble, it is to have a low estimation of one's abilities. And I don't like that because that means like I might be a really good basketball player, but I have to tell myself I'm not as good as objectively speaking. Um, Right. And so, if we continue to have this kind of dialogue, then when we start to look at imposter syndrome, imposter syndrome is kind of the feeling that you get when you compare yourself to others and you feel like there's this wide gulf between who you see and who you look up to and how you see yourself.

And I find like there's odd similarities right there.

Ash Roy:

Yeah,

Chris Do:

right. And then as parents, we kind of see our own children as we're growing, as they grow up and they start to have a high opinion of themselves, they become a little bit overconfident. So, what we do is to protect them and also to make sure that grow up into being total jerks.

We humble them by knocking them down a peg. Yes. In many cultures there's different expressions for this, being too big for your boots, too big for your britches, thinking too high of yourself, getting a big head, or a tall poppy syndrome, it's a lot of different things, okay? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

Ash Roy:

Yeah, that's a big thing in Australia.

Chris Do:

There's countless, yeah, there's countless other expressions of this. And then when we get into the professional world, or even into school, we're afraid to ask for what we want. We negotiate against ourselves, and we feel Some truth when some clients say horrible things to us, where I go, yeah, you're, you're, you're, you're right.

I didn't do a good job. Let me now work four times as hard for half as much money. And so, I have a real big problem with that.

Ash Roy:

Now, this really hit home for me when humility becomes a mask for imposter syndrome, it stops you from taking necessary action, asking for what you're worth from charging prices you deserve, and even stepping up to opportunities when they come your way.

Chris Do:

What happens when you see yourself as lower than you are? Well, you're going to hold yourself a little bit differently your body language might change You might be afraid to ask someone for the opportunity You might undersell yourself consistently and the way that you speak your tone of voice your hesitancy when you ask questions Your inability to make eye contact you don't ask for sponsors to support you, you don't even have a call to action for your community to rate the podcast because you think I suck I'm so bad at this. Let's go on the flip side.

Let's say you overestimate your actual objective level, and you're a nine, what are the downfalls? Let's look at it. And what are the pluses and the minuses? Okay. So, the downfalls are you're going to ask for opportunities that you haven't earned. And you're going to feel as if you're an equal to the people that you're, you look up to, because you don't even look up to people because you think I'm really good at this.

And you're going to ask for the sponsorships. Now you may from time to time acting in a way. That feels a little bit off putting to a few people. So, there are some downsides, but there are a lot of upsides to this. Whereas when you underestimate your skill, you probably are less likely to try things to put yourself out there to publish.

You might beat yourself up every time you listen back to a podcast and say, oh, why, why am I so stupid? Why didn't I ask that question? Oh my gosh. And then you edit the heck out of this thing and then you sit on it and you never released something. So, if we're going to air on the side of thinking too highly of yourself, of your skill, overestimating, or being super spot on versus underestimating.

I would say for right now, for most people, I'd rather that you overestimate your skill and not to underestimate it. There are some areas in which this is super dangerous, driving, surgery, or flying. There are things that you don't want to get into when you're. Overestimating your skill level, rock climbing.

There's things that will get you killed or will hurt other people. But there's lots of things that we do every single day that those negative consequences don't exist.

Ash Roy:

Think about it. What's the cost of underestimating yourself? You play small, you miss out on opportunities that you really should be going after opportunities that can showcase your incredible skills and abilities.

Now, confidence doesn't happen overnight. But it is built through small, incremental, consistent effort. Confidence grows through doing. Now here are some practical steps to building your confidence and vanquishing imposter syndrome today.

One, write down your achievements and look at them before making client calls or important meetings.

Two reframe your inner dialogue. When self-doubt creeps in, challenge the underlying assumptions. Look for evidence. To the contrary, ask yourself, what if I'm better than I'm actually telling myself I am right now.

Three, take action before the fear sets in, send that proposal, pick up the phone and make that call. Launch that new service err on the side of taking action, positive, affirmative action.

Don't opportunities pass you by. Here's an example where Chris and I talked about Noah Lyles and how he projected incredible confidence before the race, which he eventually won by a fraction of a second. And if you go back and watch that sprint, you will see the confidence with which he bounded onto that Olympic stage.

Both Chris and I are convinced that had a lot to do with him eventually winning because he won by a hair. As you were talking about the athletes, what I thought about was Noah Lyles in this Paris Olympics. I watched this Netflix documentary on these various sprinters, and Noah Lyles has this, what seems to me, to be an almost Unreasonable assumption that he's going to win because some of the other athletes are pretty good.

There's one tall guy whose name I can't remember and he looked to me to be more likely to win or certainly had better hardware. He's taller. But Noah Lyles, when he came out into that Paris Olympics, he was like jumping. He jumps really high. He was jumping and he was like really acting like he'd already won.

And I was like, man, this guy's, this guy's arrogant. But he won by a hair. I mean, he won by a tiny amount. And you've got to ask yourself, well, then what was the difference between him and, you know, the silver medalist? Probably nothing in terms of physical ability and training, but he still managed to pull it off.

Athletes like Noah Lyles, they don't just rely on physical training, though that's important. They visualize success before it actually happens. Now that's something we can all apply in our businesses. If you don't believe you're going to succeed, why would anyone else? Visualizing your wins, even if they seem far off, can prime your mind to go after what you want.

Impostor syndrome can feel like an ongoing battle, but the insights Chris shared today prove that it doesn't have to be that way. Impostor syndrome doesn't have to hold you back. You can shift your perspective anytime you choose. You can build the confidence you deserve by taking affirmative consistent and small actions.

If you found this video useful, please do consider subscribing, share this video with somebody else who would benefit. And if you'd like to watch my full conversation with Chris Do that we recently had, just click on this link or click on the link in the description below. Thanks for watching. And until next time, ciao for now.