Imposter Syndrome is NOT necessary to be successful in business

Imposter syndrome and self-judgment are not good for your business, nor are they necessary for you to grow and evolve and scale your business, whatever that looks like for you. Penny here. I hope you are having a great start to your week. But I'm gonna be honest, I was reading something earlier this week and it really pissed me off. It pissed me off because it is misleading a lot of people. I was reading some information that was written by someone who's very influential and they were saying that not only is imposter syndrome good, but imposter syndrome and self judgment is necessary. That if you're going to be in business, that it's necessary. And this is just absolutely untrue when you understand truly what imposter syndrome is. [00:01:53] Now, right now, as I'm recording this podcast, you've probably already seen emails. I'm in the process of launching my masterclass: Aligned Identity, Turn Your Inner Voice Into Your Cheerleader. Imposter syndrome is our little inner critic. It's a little inner bitch sometimes, if you will. That is not healthy. For any highly successful person, any high level entrepreneur, business leader, in order to get to the place that we are, we know that self-reflection, self-evaluation is absolutely necessary. We have to look at our numbers. We have to be brutally honest with ourselves and see where we are. We do that so that we can adjust course and navigate what is happening in our mindset and in our strategy. But this is an objective process. When we're looking at our numbers and we're doing these things, if we start getting all in our feels and we're getting all in our emotions and we're making it feel it's something about us, that is not healthy. We can always sit there and say, well, geez, you know what, I wish I had done this differently. We always are going to have some situation, some conversation, some decision that we made where we were like, You know what, I really wish I had done that differently. We can arm chair Monday morning quarterback all day long. We all know that that's not going to change things. What's important is that we learn our lesson, we see what we didn't see before. We learn from that so that we can be more aware in the future and that we keep going.  [00:03:51] But when we get into the self pity or we get into a place where we're irritated with ourselves: “Oh you went and did it again”. When we're say something to ourselves like, Well, that was a real dumb ass move. Like I could say That was the sarcasm. Wow, Penny. Well, that was a dumb ass move. And say it in jest. Or I could be like, Well God, that was just such a dumb ass move. You were just like so fricking stupid. Like, what are you, What are you doing? What did you do? You can hear the difference in those two things in our inner voice plays into that emotion, even when we're not saying it out loud to ourselves. And even when you say it in jest, you're telling your subconscious mind, even when you say it ingest, you're telling your subconscious mind, Ooh, I better watch out. That wasn't a very smart decision. And the more we say something like that to ourselves, the more we reinforce it and then our mind starts to look for our mistakes. It looks for an opportunity to make a wrong decision, depending on how often we say those things to ourself. [00:05:09] When we're having imposter syndrome that is coming from a part of the mind. The amygdala plays a role in this part of the mind that is evaluating our state of wellbeing. That evaluation comes from past experiences. What we anticipate will happen, good or bad. So whether you see the world view as your cup is half full or half empty, this definitely influences this. Your emotional state impacts it when our amygdala is evaluating whether or not something feels safe and secure, or we are in a state of wellbeing where we do not need to be on alert or concerned about what may happen, it accesses memories that we forgot about a long time ago. It's not just looking at the big things on your radar that you remember,even though those big things most likely play a role in what's coming up, those big things aren't all that is coming up. When you're experiencing imposter syndrome, there can be subconscious uncertainty and fear around a lot of things that like you never even imagined things that just would not enter your mind as influencing what it is that you're saying to yourself. [00:06:40] If you're inner voice is being snarky with you, if it's being negative, if it is triggering all kinds of emotions and resentment towards yourself, judgment of yourself, putting yourself down, feeling guilty when you know you shouldn't feel guilty, there is something else underneath the surface. Your inner voice is never, ever going to go away because we have thoughts all day long, even when we're busy and we don't notice it. We're having these thoughts.  When these thoughts come up and we're aware of them. If we can just be like, Ha, whatever, and go on and have zero zero resistance or drag put on our actions as we move forward. That's just inner dialogue. That's just our little ego wanting to come out and play. And it's like, eyah, okay, go away. I got this move on. But when there's a motion tied up in it, when you neutralize the leaps, when you rewrite the stories and you can shift the interpretations around that, you can neutralize that voice and you can turn that little nagging, whining, wanting to beat up on us, voice into just the little whatever. [00:08:10] I know it's possible because I've helped clients do it. I have done it myself. I even laugh at myself sometimes. So, earlier this week I was writing some content and I was literally staring at my screen going, I have no idea what to write, which is a lie. I know that. But I was wanting to write something that felt as if it was coming from my heart, something that I'm passionate about, and I was not connecting with anything in that particular moment. And then I just laughed out loud. I'm like, this is what I meant to share, right? This is a function of my inner voice telling me that I don't have anything to say today. And I was just able to laugh it off and say, I see what you're doing. And then I wrote a beautiful piece of content off of the back of that. So, If someone is telling you that you have to live with imposter syndrome, that this is a battle that you have to fight, that it's a struggle that you will always have as an entrepreneur, I'm gonna tell you it's bullshit. It's absolute bullshit. Are there times when it might get in your way a little bit. Yeah. But if you have that awareness, then you can quickly be like, Oh yeah, look at you and what you're doing. No, we're not playing that game today, and you can quickly move on. It doesn't get in your way and drag you down and make you feel like crap. Because if you're getting that pit in your stomach and you're thinking, Oh wow, who am I to be in this room with these people? Who am I to be working with this client? Then that's something that has to be dealt with. There are definitely things that are going to be uncomfortable as we go out of our comfort zone, and we can recognize that they're uncomfortable and that they're uncertain, but we can do it without having that inner critic, that inner voice attempting to drag us down and pull us back. [00:10:12] If you are interested in knowing how to become more aware of that inner voice and to just nip that right in the bud before it becomes a problem, and to know when it's more than you can simply do on your own, and it's time to get some extra help to shift and move that out of the way,l I want to invite you to join me the first week of November the first through the fourth, each day for about 30 to 45 minutes, I am hosting an Aligned Identity Workshop. It's absolutely free. You can sign up for it. There are gonna be some replays available, and you can come in and I will take you through a process that will forever change the way that you see your inner voice and the way that you deal with it. It's gonna be more effective for you so that when you're ready to get moving, you can just get that done. If you already know, if a part of you is already feeling called to work with me, but you don't feel that one on one is what you need, but you're more interested in a long term group experience so that you get the support as you're going, then I want you to know that I'm opening up a hybrid Mastermind. This is for high level entrepreneurs. This is for highly motivated professionals. This is people committed to doing the work that you're looking to come in, get the support you need, and go implement on your own.  If you're interested in the details, apply at the link in the show notes. I will send over all the details to you. If we're a good fit, we can have a chat. Make sure you're feeling aligned with it, because for me, energy is everything. If you're feeling called for a fresh approach as to how you up-level your mindset and you wanna clear out some deeper things, then I want you to apply because this isn't gonna be like any other mastermind that you've experienced. Have a great week and I will chat with you next time. Sign up for the Aligned Identity Workshop. There is a workbook to help you collect your thoughts going into this workshop. We meet Nov 1-4 at 11 am CDT.  Applications for the Aligned and Expanding Hybrid Mastermind are open and available here!