Letting Go of Imposter Syndrome – Stand Out & Grow Podcast

Letting Go of Imposter Syndrome – Stand Out & Grow Podcast

hi there this is Kat and thank you for joining my stand out and grow livepodcast today I have a very cool guest today that I think that you willthoroughly enjoy and if you do miss this pot live podcast now it will live and wealso will have it on the standout and grow uh podcast Channel as well so that you can reference it soum I’m happy to have Susan Harrow Harrow uh hopefully I’m not bit a butcheringher last name uh on today she is a media coach and marketing strategist she wantsto talk to you today about letting go off imposter syndrome which I feel like it’s such a great topic this topic willnever go away we always need to talk about it because as we move and evolve through our business and our life we’realways questioning our own authority our own ability and whether we are an expertor a thought leader right so that would be the Imposter syndrome so let me bringout uh Susan because I am super excited to have her on hey Susan so excited to be here and I’mhappy that you said that we all experienced this because sometimespeople feel like they’re all alone in this but it is something that we all especially the ambitious feel it yeahyeah so you know you for I think for a long time during covet I used to hearthe Imposter syndrome name and dialogue a lot and I think probably more so thanbecause we were all isolated we were probably all using digital media to get our voice out there and I think thebiggest thing for people is having the confidence or feeling like they’re animposter and they’re not really the expert right it’s so widespread they’reactually some some studies that show it’s 95 of us and the most standard onesshows 75 and that it’s I know we we as women think that we have it more and Ithink the reason why we think that we have it more is because because men often take action in spite of impostersyndrome or they feel it in a different way like they’re they’re worried more about being disrespected women areworried more about being liked right and accepted so men typically we can take alesson from them in like okay even if you feel this way still move forward and one way to do that is to set a goal inthe future like you’ve set something in the future that you know a TED talk or a video of words or whatever it is thatyou have to I used to do this all the time when I taught at the Learning Annex I would set the class and then I wouldprep it yeah yeah yeah no that makes sense so before we dive deep into thisconversation can you give my audience a little background about you and how youcame about to where you are today so I majored in Shakespeare andas an English major which is not so practical but I have a background in startups and okay so yeah so I worked ata couple of startups and then I worked with right now which is something really popular is that I worked with umsmart buildings like right now we’re all talking about how to Green Building so I was selling those systems hundredthousand dollar systems Plus in the Silicon Valley for that but I I really have married my sales experience with myEnglish background when I started off as a publicist so I was first booking people in the media and then I what Ifound when I was booking people is I could get them all these great placements in the Wall Street Journal the New York Times on Larry King liveOprah Etc and sometimes what would happen is a great big nothing and so I started looking at what was happeningand what I saw was it was them it was what they were saying or who they werebecause what we’re looking at first is your presence right like that’s what we’re bringing into first and so Istarted working with my clients on their presence and what they said and how they said it and how they were connectingwith both the audience and the media because you have to connect with both you have to give the media what they want but also how do you say the thingsthat are going to drive business it’s going to grow your reputation in your Roi so I started focusing on that andthen I moved completely into the media training aspect because I loved it so much yeah yeah and that and that totallymakes sense and and I get it um Okay so I had another question when we firstwere talking about imposter syndrome and you talked about how it’s applicable toboth male and female is the whole term you knowum I I just lost it here um what was itum fake it till you make it is no I don’t even think until you make itand I’ll tell you why there’s a different way that you can do it and it’s called embodiment okay practice andit’s called competence leads to confidence yeah you actually have to start doing it I was just media traininga 16 year old today who was about to get the Billie Jean King leadership award and he’s going to be on the ESPYs and Isaid we’re practicing on Zoom it was very quick we’re practicing a zoom I said but I want you to practice standing up and sitting down because he didn’tknow how he was going to be interviewed you want to get the feeling in your body and then when we were crafting what hewas going to say he was he had the Revelation he goes oh my God they they had given him three questions he goes Ithought I had to answer these questions I’m like no you don’t have to answer those questions we’re going to answer the questions with the information thatyou want your audience to know yeah that you need to know so what we wanted to touch on and in any media appearance wewant to touch on how do you want to grow your business like what kind of we wanted to give a very specific exampleso his goal was to fill lockers with sports use sports equipment for theunderserved Community including neurodiverse as well as girls and people in like East Palo Alto because he’s nearthe Silicon Valley right and so we were talking about what we want to give examples of that we want to we want toinclude a quote like how widespread is this what’s the importance of sports and we also want to include the fact that hewants more money and more sponsors to grow his non-profit so we created inthose answers while still answering the question and honoring Billie Jean King we created those answers that gives thatwill drive business and grow his non-profit in there and that’s sometimes what people forget they just want to beLively and entertaining and they forget that the purpose is to have people engage with you on whatever level you’relooking for you know to feed yeah well and just so that youknow Suzanne I was alluding to more of the fact that uh some people who fake it before they make it put somethingthemselves up for a posture syndrome because they’re not learning the business right they’re not learning thestrategies and the things that they need to know in order to be that thought leader or expert or whatever it is thatthey’re trying to be right that yeah and and with the fake until they make it so the alternative to that is really umsetting yourself up for like future pacing yourself who do I want to become and then you want to bet sort of reverseengineer that yeah you can really look every day I think it’s an everyday moment by moment process so it’s notlike just write your goals once and forget about them or read them every day it’s really about how how who do youwant to be and this started by the way with the Buddha the Buddha was saying like who do you who do you want tobecome so this is like an ancient thing to be able to live into our own expectations not other people’sexpectations but am I every day being a little bit better or responding in someway and part of that self-reflection right like part of it is self-awareness and self-reflection and going through thosedifferent scenarios even at the end of the day I always review like I’ll be reviewing this podcast what did I dowell what could I have done better why did I miss an opportunity right so I can learn for the next time so it’s reallyabout that practice and iteration yeah yeah Josie I love to comment I love thatline confidence please the confidence so there you go and that’s statistically backed Josie as well so that’s that’sthat’s research based that competence leads to confidence so sometimes we’re always thinking that confidence comesfirst but it’s actually the reverse without doing the thing and then we’re like hey I can do itexactly makes sense to me okay so you mentioned that there’s three ways uhpeople of all genders ethnicities yes and sensibilities can let go ofimposter syndrome so what are the three ways you want to share with us so thefirst way is that future pacing it’s that who do you want to become and then really reflecting on that daily andnumber two is micromanaging your mind and what I mean by that is in your if you’re in a situation where you feeljealousy come up or it you’re you’re you’re triggered in some way is toacknowledge that thought but then let it go and then think about what great thing is that you’re admiringabout that person because when you can shift that thinking in the moment we actually change our energy and we becomea more positive energy if we’re in jealousy we have a bad energy right not bad but we have a low let’s call it alower energy and when we’re in the energy of complementing and and like andreally admiring another person automatically raises us internally this is very subtle but it’s actually reallyfelt it’s the felt experience that we have and that really on the energeticlevel is where most of work takes place the other thing you know the learning your your line so to speak is more abouttechnique and the tech and managing the techniques so that’s number two and thennumber three is really about um this is another managing your mindkind of thing but it’s aphorisms don’t this is this isresearch-based as well aphorisms don’t work because we don’t believe them so we have to have create a bridge into thoseaphorisms so one way to do that is not to say I’m so great I’m so fabulous I’mgoing to be so confident I’m not nervous when you are but to ask a questioninstead of saying it as a statement you can actually say I wonder how I can feelso good in my own skin and really feel relaxed and andum alive in this particular interaction and that bridge saying how can I or orum I don’t know how because we don’t know how if we knew we went so either either I don’t know how or how can Isort of opens our mind and the possibility to live into that futureself so to speak too okay that’s very goodum things for people to think about especially if you’re trying to let go ofthat imposter syndrome and I’m writing as many uh noticessuch a great skill I love it that way people can keep up okayum why are you need a Content management strategy for any media appearances podcasts or presentation can how canthat bypass imposter syndrome so one of the things that when you plan prepare and practice you’re free to bespontaneous but the other scientific part about that is that when you getyour messaging ingrained into your brain then you don’t have the danger ofcortisol zooming up and stopping that because of cortisol blocks short-term memory so we actually want to practicewhat those messages are and in in real life like in front of the camera infront of Zoom like this or whatever the situation is you want to if you’re doing a TED Talk you want to get up on a stageyou don’t actually do it so um when you’re doing um a camera you know it’s really good toget the feel of the camera in front of you so start to practice those things in the situation and then you want amessaging strategy that really connects with the audience what we were talking about a little bit before so are yousaying the kinds of things that are going to drive interest in sales but andgive and give real value to the audience so you want maybe you want some advicebecause the media is always looking for advice what do you know that we don’t know that my audience doesn’t know how can you Enlighten and educate andentertain them um you want to have like success stories or personal stories now we really wantto have we really want to know you so you want to have a personal story so when I was talking aboutum the um rashan Patel who I was who I was just media training I’m like we wanta story about like how you be how you went from being super shy to how basketball and sports allowed you togrow yourself and have built-in friends in a team we want to know what personal story and everybody’s going to ask youthat thing why do you do what you do why did you write that book why did you give that Ted talk so that’s the firstquestion that you want to answer in a very personalized way we have had such a short period of time I didn’t tell youmy signature story but you might have more than one or or three of thosestories of why you do and they need to be expandable and collapsible depending on the amount of time that you have inthe media in a TV show and the show like yours it’s more like the shortest answer right right because they’re on a timecrunch so they have an agenda and things set in place well typically on a on a TVtalk show there’s they’re for typically four minutes and you have two of them so it’s back and forth so it’s not two continuous minutes and that’s just not alot that’s not a very long time so we’re always thinking about ways to shortcut it so TV I always want my clients tohave props and you know things that will shortcut a conversation physical objects right because it’s a physical medium andthen the other thing is that we would want to have any kind of one two three like you led me to because then it’s areally easy way to keep on track so if you’re super nervous you you can remember those three points because youwill be nervous right um and then you also want to have b-roll which is background footage which is anykind of interesting photographs or video or print in the in the background sothat helps tell the story that you want to tell okay and then what types of businesses and what types of things areyou helping people with so I’m I’m in the socially consciousarea the social entrepreneur so I’m working with women Founders and people who are like Innovative innovators andon the edge or anyone who has a business book product surface or cause that’s launching but really I’m I’m reallylooking for uh the kind of people that I mostly work with or people who are really doing something great in theworld but that can also be a piece of chocolate right or something yeah right um yeah and so I work with them fromeverything some people don’t necessarily want to become thought leaders some people are on a book tour for example and they want to promote their book butthey might be promoting a course right they’re promoting courses and speaking engagement so that’s all allintegrated into the pattern right so you’re not you’re not focused on that you’re focused on the information in thebook or what’s going to give value to the audience so those now I’ve forgotten the questionwhat types of people are you helping with the different campaigns in know yeah because you you had mentioned TedTalk do you help people prepare for Ted Talks you know that’s so fascinating that you asked that because I end uppreparing helping people with Ted Talks I usually recommend they get a Ted coach but then I’m also looking at I’m helpingthem also how to because Ted coaches usually don’t talk about this how do you use the stage how do you engage with theaudience I’m showing them how to do all of that physically as well to use your whole physicality so I’m a black beltand Aikido and former teaching tennis pro so I really want to be able to have that embodied and physical too so how doyou use the stage how do you use all of your body in the area that you have right and also is that Ted talk like inthe right order is it engaging because oftentimes um it’s not going to be sometimes withpeople that I’ve worked with it’s not quite on it right so we experiment weplay we practice we we do maybe some things that are out out of character oruncomfortable to get to the thing the essence of the thing right and that’swhat we’re always looking for the essence of the thing so TED Talks um book tours launching a productum becoming a thought leader so I have a lot of clients becoming who want to become thought leadersum one of my clients I prepped for recently for the Wall Street Journal who’s in the tech sector right becauseof what’s what’s going on in Tech it’s really topical right so I’m always looking for people who are topical now Imean in you know we’re always looking for the intersection between the media and your topic right and your expertiseyeah yeah so because I I can think of a lot of situations and a lot of timeswhen I have people that are viewing the podcast they’re always thinking the back of my head well that’s not for me youknow so I’m trying to get you to relate to some of the people and some of the things I would imagine if they this wastheir first keynote the do you help with that keynote speakers yeah if thatthat’s not my real my real zone of geniuses media okay you know sooftentimes what happens is like one of my clients was speaking at um what’s the Santa Cruz one calledum that big stage on in Santa Cruz um it’s skipping anyway it’s um so I prepped her for that and shecame back and said but we were we were doing media training she’s like well I’ve got to give this talk and and I Ish I asked her to hire a coach for that and she wouldn’t she wouldn’t so I saidokay so we wanted to talk about how she was going to grow her business of the future because she was moving out of oneto one she was a medical doctor so she was moving out of her practice into morespeaking and I said so we want to talk more about that and what she said after she was on that stage she’s like I wasthe only one there who was media coached I could tell and then at the end she was bombarded with people who wanted toengage with her and who wanted to you know hire her for speaking but also wanted to do she now has like a a bio afacility that does like all kinds of biohacking so people fly in from all over the world to do this kind of futurehow you maintain your health and wellness and well-being yeah okay awesome so can you give us a flavor ofsome people you have helped oh gosh yes so everyone from rockstarsto um uh contestants um what is it called the the Iron Chefyeah so some of my clients rock stars like um Bob Marley’s son and but I alsowork with you know entrepreneurs authors and speakers who are regular I worked with the ganja Guru several times he wason a PBS special um you know about this was before cannabis sort of became the thing thatit is today so really I work with I love to work with it’s anything that I’m fascinated with you know that peoplehave so if I’m not fascinated with them and I don’t love it but I know that they’re media Savvy and media ready Iwill refer them to someone else but I have to love it and be interested in it so I’ve worked on snacks andum you know let’s see some of my latest ones are the fractional recruiting firms so womenfounder so it really people often ask me well do you have experience in my genreright and and I say that doesn’t matter and it’s good that by don’t because so alot of medical doctors and wellness right it it’s good if I don’t because you have to be able to speak to me and you have to be able to speak to thepublic and have them understand it so it doesn’t actually matter so it’s to me it’s are you media worthy and can I helpyou and do you have something that’s going to help a lot of a lot of great people out there yeah so are you stilldoing the pr business or are you just I don’t do the media placements I work with the pr firms and the people whohave marketing internal marketing departments so their VA is doing it I do the media training so I partner with PRfirms okay yeah so so if there are PR firms out there that want their clientto be media trained that would be a really great um match and I refer people to PR firmsso they can get booked okay okay because I I would imagine someone that would be a question for somebody who’s tuning inis whether you’re uh full service or if this is you know that part of thetraining and you just clear the air so that’s great a media training part but I also do a lot of stream strategicmarketing strategic planning like one of my clients now he is in the constructionindustry so he’s got a 30 million dollar construction industry company but he has written a children’s book ordinarily Iwouldn’t take on a children’s book but because this children’s book is about the crisis in the construction industrywe’re moving in because we’re we’re actually changing the perception from being dirty and disrespected to Nobleand needed that is something that we’re working on um together to uh and and that thatwould go in several stages one more pitching the trades right then the consumer direct to Consumer and thenpeople who would be interested in buying the book so there’s three different marketplaces for that and then I’m working with them on creating theirwhole marketing strategy behind the scenes because they they’re not set up yet on the internet because their theirbusinesses that are um brick and mortar right so so we’vethere’s a learning curve to marketing you know on the internet so that’s what I’m working with them on to oh fantasticokay so I want to touch on your book because I love love love the title andsell yourself without selling your soul can you give us some insightum into your book is it still available can people still get it it’s still whatI’ve done is I’ve actually turned that book into a course called The Zone of Fame your Genius gone viral and thefirst part of the course you learn your messaging because most people do things back ask words they contact the mediaand then have an oh you know what moment when the media calls so the messaging comes first then it’s setting up yoursystems like what I was talking about with the construction company you have to make sure that when people arrive at your website PR gives gives pushespeople to your door but you need to open it and Usher them through whatever that process isum from free free to fee right and then the last part is um the 25-day marketing campaign thatsuits your style and energy because I wrote the book cat because people kept coming to me they thought they werebragging begging or whoring to get publicity and I said it doesn’t need to be so you can be the true you and stillget what you want and that’s what the whole book is based on oh great right Ilove that because um a lot of times people feel like they have to go over the top to sell when atthe end of the day you know and I try to coach and and train people that people buy from people they’re not buying whatyou’re schlepping they’re buying because they like you they they connected withyou something human happened you know I love that something human it is humanand it really boils down to that yeah it really is and I’m I’m loving the show Nashville I know it’s a little older nowI don’t know if you’ve watched it so it’s so great because I love the starof Raina James and how it’s contrasted to um Juliet right right and and RaynaJames is true to herself and true to her music and that is her inner Muse that issomething that is always driving her forward is that is these are my songs this is how I’m growing these are thenew songs that I’m creating and and how she works all those relationships to tryto get the best for everyone and I think that’s the key thing is like how can Iwhen when you ask yourself like what is what is my highest good how can I serve and that goes with like are the clientsa good match are I’m always just looking for are we a match is this going to serve both of us and that’s what I loveabout Rayna James is that she’s she negotiates these really hard relationships in a in a dog eat dogworld right like and and where she’s shuffled to the side and she manages tonegotiate them and I think it’s like so admirable by staying true to herself andum absolutely absolutely now are there certain things a person feels when theysuspect they have imposterous syndrome is there a certain feeling or a certainway that they’re like seeing themselves I had I did a workshop once and um thiswoman said they they said what’s your power animal said[Music] um butI feel like I’m a little brown mouse got you and she was she was so she wanted tobe the bear but if we feel like we’re a little brown mouse and we’re aspiring to be a bear Imean first we have to ask is that is that true to who I am like is it pressure to be an extrovert if you’re anintrovert or um you know is that who you are so it’sreally about keeping your quirks and developing those into the unique youthat’s the most important thing so it’s trying to find those points that thatare special about you and sometimes sometimes um I love when people you knoware a little quirky or they talk in a different way I’m not going to smooth that out of them yep yep yeah and thatmakes total sense uh I think another thing probably someone feels is like youhit on before the lack of confidence they know they know it but they feellike they’re not as confident about it you know but the thing is and and that’swhere daily practices come in so I do a lot of different daily practices because I’m a very anxious person even coming onthis podcast I’m like my sweeties like have something to eat I’m like I can’t eat you knowbut I can’t eat before yeah and that’s just part of my nature it’s acceptingthat that even though I do podcasts and do speaking I’m um I’m an I’m a trainedextrovert so okay yeah yeah and so so I use a lot of the techniques that I’veused on myself and that come from martial arts and training in tennis and all of that that help you calm down andhelp you relax and part of these daily practices might be something as simpleas breathing you know doing the Box breathing the end for four hold for four and out for four right because if you dothat even for five minutes you’re gonna change your neurology you’re going to calm down yep so but start to practicethat now there’s a book that I haven’t um I just heard interview of um it’s a it’s I think it’s called built to moveand one of the things that I love that they said it’s it’s how to maintain your Mobility as you age and at any age andone of the things that they did is integrate movement into what you’re already doing so like for example whenI’m walking I walk every day I do breathing exercises okay because I’m doing two things at once so I do thebreathing and I’m trying to expand my breathing and like expand it like to hold my breath underwater too so I do all of that to expand my lung capacity Ialso do um like a Buddhist prayer which is very which is very simple that it’s notreally some people have tried to actually smooth out the Buddhism of it but it’s like um maybe filled withloving kindness maybe well maybe peaceful entities may I be happy May everyone be filled with loving kindnessmay they be well may they be peaceful entities may they be happy so I do that every single day pretty much becauseit’s putting the Good Will out into the world of how I want to feel myself butalso how so I do it for myself and I do it for others sometimes you know one or the other but it’s it’s a practice thatI’m always doing because I want to maintain my faith and Humanity witheverything that’s going on which is not always easy right in the world and there’s we always look at like there’salways good people and some a lot of stuff is happening that isnot so positive yeah no that makes sense so I want to maintain that inner Equanimity no matter what’s going aroundme and by the way I pulled a card right before this from Tosha silver I don’t know if you know her but she’s reallylovely it’s called The Sanctuary card okay yeah and I wanted to read it because I just thought it was so lovelyum a sanctuary resides in sight inside inside you no matter what is happening this inner Temple beckons you to entertake a deep breath enter and sit down on the throne of your own heartoh that was so poetic and beautiful yes absolutely absolutely and and I thinkthat’s really part of the essence of imposter syndrome is really um taking our own measure and creatingthat marvelous me file but not in a way like when people say wonderful thingsabout you put it in that file but also put it in your mental file and it’s not necessarily that we’re getting all theour accolades from the outside but we really want to in turn intern internalize that so I want you tointernalize it is to start to really repeat those things to ourselves and say recognize what’s really wonderful aboutyou that that that isn’t the same as everybody else right right and I thinkit’s people dedicating so a little bit of time with their affirmation orum whatever it is yeah whatever it is for you yep that it’s going to help them build that confidence and do do thosedaily practices and then do the the physical daily practice whether it’s doing a video a day you don’t have toyou don’t have to post it anywhere you know but start to do it yeah andstart to accept those those opportunities that are coming to you even if you are so scared you areshaking in your boots right exactly well how do people connect with you do youhave anything special for our viewers I do so prccrets.com is my website likepublic relationssecrets.com and then we have the 100 word email that can get themedia to call you and I think it’s for just forward slash a hundred I I know wesent the um yeah I will drop it in the comments I have it yesokay and there’s plenty of other free things on my website there are videos there are special reports there’s thereare lots of things that you can get whatever your mode is if you want to read if you want to get special reportsthey’re all there on peersecrets.com and if you would like to engage with me further I have a free 15-minute consultand I’d love to speak with you okay and that was the other thing I was going to ask is if they had any questions if theywanted to go in the pr Direction and just you know use you as a kind ofsounding board and find some PR companies but also um yes absolutely and you can DM me onLinkedIn so connect me on LinkedIn I see Joe says Ziggy Marlo Marley it was actually kaimani who wrote a booknice yeah and I hadn’t heard of him at the time either but he said you knowfilled stadiums 20 000 people oh wow yeah incredible quite something so yeahso um yeah could connect with me or DM me on LinkedIn if that’s the easiest thing for you awesome uh any last minutethoughts or words to share anything yeah I think my last minute thought isum one thing that we have from that we do in Aikido and that you can practice every single day it’s to expand yourenergy and we do this before we get on the mat and this is something that you can do behind the scenes at any time butit’s imagine above below side to side back front to back that you’re expandingyour energy out so before you enter a room before you step on a stage beforeyou do a sales call you Center yourself in ground and then expand your energy inall of those directions that’s one of the things that helps develop command presence but it does take practice tostart to feel that and then to be able to do it on command nice yeah awesomeawesome well Susan thank you so much for joining me today this was a delight yesso fast it did it did I’m sure that we could probably sit here and talk forever I think so I think so well thank you forjoining me if people have any more questions they’ll drop them in the comments on the different platforms I’llmake sure I go back and tag you so that you can thank you I’d appreciate that yeah yeah absolutely thank you for thisso Lively and I love to meet all your new people and thank you so much thank youthank you for joining my standout and grow live podcast please join me again next Monday and again we uh have theselive at 2 p.m central time so don’t miss out and if you have any questions oryou’re just catching the end of this podcast it just hit rewind catch it from the very beginning and you’re gonnalearn about imposter syndrome which with my lovely guest Susan uh had a greatpresentation in regards to it and you will learn a lot learned a lot and she is a media coach and marketingstrategist so please reach out to her thank you again and as I always in thisyou got this[Music]thank you