How to Deal with Impostor Syndrome – Ask Clay Anything

Audio Transcription

Do you have questions? America’s number one business coach has answers. It’s your brought up from Minnesota. Here’s another edition of ask clay, anything on the thrive time business coach radio show.

Welcome back to another exciting initiative, thrive time show on your radio and podcast download, and as always, if you are a member of the thrive community, meaning that you are a business coach client or subscriber to the thrive time show business coach platform where you can have access to all the videos and you attend the workshops or you’re an active client, you can email us any questions you want to [email protected]. And I pride myself on answering those questions as soon as possible. Now, Andrew, on today’s show we’ve had many, many thrivers who have asked me over the past, well since 2009, so the past 10 years have asked me, hey, how do you deal with imposter syndrome? But in India, before you heard today show outline and you heard the phrase imposter syndrome. Had you ever heard of that phrase before? Uh, had I had not educated me, I would like for you to read the definition of the imposter syndrome from today’s show notes. And as you read it, I’m going to queue up some, a nice, kind of an uplifting kind of a monkish music to create the backdrop and the motif needed for really highbrow learning.

Got It. Okay. Imposter Syndrome, also known as imposter phenomenon, or imposter ism fraud. A fraud syndrome, or the imposter experience is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent stop. Right? Stop right there.

So this is a, a syndrome or a psychological phenomenon where somebody doubts their accomplishments. Uh, okay. So I’m going to try to break this down into a very actionable, actionable bites, actionable pieces. Imposter Syndrome is where you basically feel bad because you are dominating is what I believe, what someone is saying. You feel bad because you’re actually getting it done and you somehow feel bad because you’re doing well and you maybe feel like you don’t deserve it or you don’t. Um, maybe you’re not. Maybe other people might not like you because of it. So there are really five big causes of this feeling of imposter syndrome. So one would be, um, when you set goals that are extremely high and when you fail to meet those goals, some people experience self doubt. Um, I don’t. But I do know that some people report that. Also another cause might be if you’re feeling as though your colleagues don’t think that you’re the real deal.

Some people again feel imposter syndrome, maybe he got promoted to a new job and you just feel like the people who are your colleagues don’t respect you and they don’t think you’re the real deal. And maybe that causes that feeling. Another cause of this would be judging yourself based upon how easy it is for you to do something. Maybe school just super easy for you. Everything’s easy for you and therefore you feel like you haven’t really put in the work needed to get to where you want to go. Another cause of this. Maybe, maybe you just feel like if you ever asked for help, you feel bad because it may hurt your reputation if you appear to be ignorant and thus unworthy of the position, um, another, uh, cause of this. Maybe we, maybe you feel like you believe that you’ll never be enough. And I want to help help cure somebody of this feeling if I can.

So, Andrew, I have prepared multiple notable quotables for our listeners out there. There are first notable quotable would come from the great book known as the Bible. And if you’re out there and you believe in the Bible, you believe the Bible is the irrefutable word of God. If you are a Judeo Christian, this may resonate with you. If not, I have other quotes ready to go. Andrew, please read the first notable quotable for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. You said for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. What does it mean from your perspective? Uh, that means everyone is going to fail and everyone’s going to miss the mark and everyone’s going to fall short. So, uh, do you find yourself feeling bad if you fall short? Uh, I don’t. Okay. Have you ever felt bad?

Uh, I had. I have felt bad once or twice in the past in general, just because of a mistake. No, not because of a mistake. What caused you to feel bad? I’m gonna ask you for a specific weird story. But Oh man, I mean, I, I, I do not recall this emotion. I’ve never tried my best. And then fail to achieve something and felt bad. Have you ever felt bad? Trying to think of the time. Okay. I don’t know if you’re a Christian out there. Just know that Christ died for your sins. So the idea is that you don’t, you just do your best and forget the rest. Please read the next notable quotable for the people out there that maybe are not Judeo Christians, but they’re looking for a little encouragement today because they’re feeling the imposter syndrome. And it says end, where I excel, is ridiculous, sickening worth work ethic, you know, while the other guy’s sleeping, I’m working.

Read it again with a little, a little more swag. And where I excel is ridiculous, sickening work ethic, you know, the while the other guy’s sleeping, I’m working. So if you’re out there and you’re saying, gosh, I feel bad, maybe I feel like I don’t deserve this job that just go out, work, everybody. Just just go outwork work. Everybody. That’s all you gotta do is go out there and outwork everybody. Because when you do outwork everybody, um, you, you shouldn’t feel bad because you deserved it. Not Andrew. What’s the next notable quotable? The next notable quotable is do your best and forget the rest and give God the stress. All I would say is that if you’re out there and you feel like you’re an imposter, like you don’t deserve your success, I would just tell you, you know, do your best to just forget the rest.

Don’t worry about what everybody else thinks. I’m in gift God distress on. Now, if you’re out there and you’re really a and you’re not a Christian, you don’t like these references to Christ, you don’t like a will smith quote. I have a fourth potential cure of the imposter syndrome. Now I call this the secret f. Now Andrew, you know about the f six life, right? Yes sir. So let’s talk about the apps. You’ve got faith. Yup. What’s the next one? Next one’s family. Then you got finances. You got fitness, you got friendship, and you got fun. Let’s repeat it one more time there, Andrew. Yet faith your faith, family, finances, fitness, friendship, and fun. Those are your six f Dot, the F six. Those are the six areas of your life that were you. At the end of the day, you want to set goals for yourself in those areas.

That’s what the f six life is all about. We believe in creating both time and financial freedom right here at the thrive time show. We always talk about making sure you have goals for your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, and your fun. But I have a secret f andrew. I have a secret F. Secret F is not giving a feeling thought or second to caring about what other people think. Can you repeat one more time? Yeah. The secret deaf is not giving a feeling. Oh, I see. Of people have said you were going to. A lot of people thought you were gonna. Say something. Oh, but you’re saying it’s the secret of his not giving a feeling, feeling this is so important out there. I don’t know how to help you other than by taking the show to a deep, dark place. Let me give you an example.

When I went to school, Andrew, were you homeschooled? I was homeschooled. I was homeschooled, so when I went to a public school I used to Stutter, couldn’t talk, and when I couldn’t talk to you know how many people made fun of me? All of them. Pretty much everybody. Yeah. Do you want me to? People didn’t make fun of me. Pretty much nobody. I have like one person named jp who was a taking taekwondo in school. He’s the only person who stood up for me the entire time. So I have watched people mock me because I was different because I couldn’t speak a certain way and so I am missing the part of me that cares what anybody else thinks. So I think this imposter syndrome could be summarized by saying, if you care what other people think, it’s never going to be good enough and I don’t care as another example.

Um, for my wedding photos for my wedding, um, you know, you typically get a photo, you get photos with your bridesmaids and groomsmen. Yup. The wedding party, it was probably three weeks ago, somebody was walking through our house and they were looking at the photo and they said, who’s that? Who’s that? Who’s that? Who’s that? Who’s that person? And do you know what I said on a few of the people we got to their names? Uh, I don’t know. Right? I don’t know. They were at my wedding in 2001. I don’t know who they already more, right. There are certain people that like I try to stay in touch with, but once they got married they wouldn’t return calls or they got busy or whatever. So the people that are in my wedding photos, the people that are in probably most of our listeners wedding photos, you don’t even talk to the vast majority of them anymore.

So who cares what anybody thinks, why do we care what other people think? It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Ex partners, you know, in business or ex-girlfriends in life ex boyfriends. I don’t care. I just don’t care. I don’t care. And if you, if I did care, it would be impossible to have happiness because it’s impossible to make these other people happen to nature. I think that’s what causes questions like this about imposter syndrome is trying to live up to a certain standard of other people. I would just mentally picture yourself alone on the planet earth and just do your best to just don’t worry about other people. Think. Another thing is, have you noticed that, uh, typically an Andrew, maybe you haven’t experienced this yet, but have you noticed that when people are single, they’re super available to hang out, but a lot of people when they get married, they just quit returning calls.

Have you ever seen this situation? Yes. I’ve seen this a lot. A lot of people have a best friend who’s really close to them and then as soon as they get married, they don’t return calls anymore. Now, if you’re somebody out there who say, Gosh, I need these relationships to be happy, I need friendships, I need all these relationships, you’re never going to be happy. It’s like chasing an infinity loop to the end. You’re not going to get there. It doesn’t work. So if you’re out there today and you feel like you’re struggling with imposter syndrome, I’m, I’m not a psychologist, but I am somebody who I’m very content with my life. If I were to die tomorrow and I’m happy with it, I don’t have any cognitive dissonance. I don’t feel stressed all the time. I don’t run around the office. Can Andrew just my life better?

I don’t. I don’t do that. That’s true. You don’t. And I think if there’s somebody out there that I’m going through these feelings of feeling like you’re inadequate, uh, I don’t know what to do other than maybe listened to these notable quotables again, and to recognize that just do your best. Forget the rest and let, let, let, let God handle the stress. Just do your best. Don’t worry about what other people think. If you got promoted when you get promoted, Andrew, when somebody gets promoted from the employee level to a manager level, what always happens, uh, usually other people get upset, right? They don’t like you. They don’t want you to be promoted. People do not want you to be promoted. Attributes spent a lot of time watching crabs trying to climb out of a bucket. I have nuts. Typically not what I do when I’m not working.

I’m going to go through this audio in this video. Crabs climbing out of a bucket. Okay? And, uh, let’s see. And then what happens is with crabs, when they basically are in a bucket and they’re trying to climb out, do you know what the other crabs do? They would grab them and pull them down because they’re trying to get out the right. So this is, these are crabs, crab mentality, crab mentality. This is a youtube video showing crabs right here. Try to climb out of a bucket. What happens is the crabs will pull other crabs down in their attempt to get out of the bucket. And I have found is this society, I don’t care what church you go to, I don’t care what books you read, I don’t care what mindset you have, and I don’t care how much you believe the world doesn’t work that way.

It does in most people. The moment that I remember when I got on the cover of the Tulsa world business coach section, there were many, many competitors that were irate and they all said they wanted me to be successful, but they’re not because it causes jealousy. Do you remember the Bible story? What was the Bible store where they threw the dude into the pit? Yup. Uh, it was a Joseph Joseph and his coat of many colors. How does give us a rough overview of the story and the story. Joseph went away, spent all of his inheritance and he bought all this stuff. And then he came back with nothing when his brothers stayed at home. Uh, but when he came back, his dad welcomed him and gave him a coat. And his family, his brothers were very upset about this because they did everything right and they did, you know what they were supposed to do, but when Joseph got back, you know he got rewarded and because he got rewarded, they decided to throw him in a pit and sell them as a slave.

Yeah, they sold them. And that’s what people do. A lot of times people are not happy that you are happy. So I think this feeling of this, this the syndrome that we’re talking about here, um, this, this imposter syndrome is caused when you really do care what other people think. And I just want to free you from that idea. Don’t care what other people fake unless they are your ideal and likely buyers in the world of capitalism. The only, the only filter you should have is, is ethical. Is it ethical? Like would God be okay with this if you’re not a Christian? I didn’t even know the first filter. Run it through, but when I go to jail for this, maybe ask that question. If it’s ethical, legal, whatever that is, then don’t worry about it. Because when you grow your company, uh, Andrew, when you are working at epic photography, did you ever run into other photography companies that were not happy about us?

I did. And what happens and whatnot. Uh, they just wanted to find anything that was wrong with it or anything it anywhere where we were succeeding. They wanted to point that out and how, why that was wrong. So you ran into him at a trade show or something? Yeah, when actually when Tomo tell us the story. So when my wife and I were actually getting married after, after I stopped working there, we were at a couple. We were looking for a venue and so we went to a couple of venues and at the venues they were some other photographers and those other photographers that did not have high opinions of the cars were taking their money. Exactly. There’s not enough money in the world for everybody. There’s not so because I make disproportionately more money than the other people in the wedding photography business. It causes them to hate me.

And then they begin to say, are you qualified to be top? What was your backgrounds that ethical? What was your educational background? Do you really know photography? What entitles you to believe that you are the best photographer in town? And I say, uh, well, I, you know, just mathematically speaking really just the money because that’s how you keep score in business. It’s true, but the other competitors were not happy with that answer. Thus, if I did care at all, even one 10th of one percent at all, what my competition thought, I would probably have the imposter syndrome to another example, Andrew just today there’s a person on our team and one of our companies is doing a great job. John and I recognized he’s doing a great job, right? So when we promote that person, what do you think is going to happen as a result of wanting to promote somebody?

What you think’s going to happen? There’s going to be other people probably in the position around where he’s at. Then they’re going to get upset because they were doing the same thing and they were doing this and they were doing that, right? That’s what happens. It always happens that way. Now, if we know what happens when we give somebody a raise, Andrew, what happens when you give one individual a raise for outstanding achievement? What happens? Same thing. People say that’s not fair. When it’s not fair, that’s not how the world works. It’s not fair if you know, if you do or is it actually is fair. If you do more work and better work and are on time and are meeting deadlines and um, uh, if you are in the other person’s not, of course you’re going to get paid more. So let me give you an example here.

Okay. One of my favorite nfl players that basically is a special teams guru who plays for the New England patriots. This guy never complained. What his contract. Great Guy. He’s a captain of the team, uh, arguably kind of their spiritual leader. Matthew slater. How much money do you think Matthew Slater makes per year? Average? Oh, man. Nfl. He plays in the NFL. Yet for the New England patriots, he plays special teams, which means he’s not an office or defense. Typically. He plays special teams. How much do you think he typically makes on an annual basis? Just average. Just average of 650,000 to a million dollars. It’s two. It’s $2,000,000. Like 30,000. A little over $2,000,000 a year. Okay. Now Tom Brady, who plays for the New England patriots, how much do you think he makes per land? He is a quarterback who is arguably the best in the NFL right now. Right. What do you think he makes per year roughly?

Um, if he makes 2 million, 6 million. He makes just for, just to give you some numbers here, he makes about $14. Million dollars this year. There you go. Which means you think in seven times more than a teammate. Seven times more than another teammate on his team. Now, Beth, you slater doesn’t have a problem with Tom Brady making that kind of money. Nor does Brady feel guilty about making that kind of money. But what if Tom Brady felt bad about making that kind of money? Like he wasn’t living up to it. It would be like the exact opposite of the crabs. He would be pulling himself down because he felt bad for somebody else when he should just be pushing himself up. Using that as motivation. Is it even possible for Tom Brady to play seven times better than Matthew Slater? A mathematically? I don’t know, but probably if we think about death, I mean you’d have to.

That’s a lot of money. Now let’s think about this for a second. Matthew Stafford. Andrew, do you know matthew? Matthew Stafford is educate me. Matthew Stafford is an NFL quarterback for the lions. Right. How much money do you think he makes per year on average? I’m going to go with a million even million. You do know the name? Did you deal the name of Matthew? Did you know the name Tom Brady before today. Tom Brady? Yes. Yup. Okay, but you’ve never heard of the name of Matthew Stafford. Never heard it. Now Matthew, Matthew Stafford. Right now, I’ll just throw this out here for you. Matthew Stafford made made $135. Million dollars in five years. Wow. He makes $27,000,000, which is almost two times more than Tom Brady. That’s a lot. Yeah, do you think Matthew Stafford’s feeling bad that he’s making that kind of money? Not at all. He’s feeling really good, right? Yeah. I’m just saying if you’re out there today and you’re trying to justify a.

If you’ve won the lottery of life, you’re diligent, you’re consistent, you’re making more money than somebody else. You can’t feel bad because Matthew Stafford, thinking about this. Matthew Stafford’s making $27,000,000 a year in matthew slater’s making $2,000,000 a year. It’s unbelievable how much more than that. The income disparity between great and very good is exponential. So if you’re out there today and you’re feeling bad because of your success, this is the best I can give you is do your best. Forget the rest in. Give God your stress. My name is Clay Clark. I’m a business coach. That is Andrew bloomer. He’s a great American. He does a great job on the show notes, and without further ado, freak to what? Oh.