0:00:00 A: I’ve been trying and, you know, I’ve been tested. Welcome to the Friends In Business podcast with your hosts, Ben Wright and Jemimah Ashley. Ben, known as the sales strategist, and Jemimah, our resident visibility expert, are here to share their wealth of knowledge and experience with a little fun along the way. Whether you’re a leader, entrepreneur, or aspiring business owner, this is the podcast where we share everything we know about business to help you succeed.
0:00:31 A: Let’s get started. Welcome to the Friends In Business podcast.
0:00:43 Ben Wright: Hey. Hey, Jemimahh, how are you?
0:00:45 Jemimah Ashley: Oh, so good. Ben, how are you?
0:00:46 Ben Wright: I am good. I’m very good. Today we had a little false start when we were trying to get set up, and that is we have this beautiful location and I think we said at the start of our. Of our podcast journey that we wanted to make sure we always recorded outside because this think it’s great for us. Certainly helps me be more relaxed and deliver better thoughts, but it’s also just really nice to look at and one of the key reasons that we’re recording up here, but we’ve got one of my fabulous neighbours and I live in a street where it’s the best community, that experience that I’ve ever had. But they’re building a great big house and the builders are being a little bit noisier than normal today, so we’re pretty confident that there’s going to be no background noise. But if you hear a hammer or two, you know that that’s.
0:01:29 Jemimah Ashley: Steve’s got to build his house and we’re fine with that.
0:01:31 Ben Wright: That’s our neighbors. Yeah. Lloydy building out his house. It’s going to be beautiful and I definitely want to swim in that lovely pool when you’re ready. But the other thing that we have spent a little bit of time talking about this morning is something that’s really close to my heart, and it’s because I started my entrepreneurial journey probably reasonably early. I started it in my 20s, and that is imposter syndrome.
0:01:51 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:01:52 Ben Wright: And that’s our topic for today. And look, I’ll be the first to admit I’m generally pretty open with the areas in my life that at an emotional level, I’ve struggled. But, yeah, imposter syndrome was a really big one for me, particularly as the business that we had got bigger and bigger once we got up to that 250 to 280 staff and subcontractor level, I was still pretty young. I was only in my early 30s. And. And I remember Sunday nights were really difficult for me because
0:02:23 Jemimah Ashley: Sunday Scary is really common for people.
0:02:24 Ben Wright: Yeah. Yeah. I used to really struggle on a Sunday night with anxiety and worry about how I was gonna stand up to what was needed the next week. I had absolute confidence in my ability. I don’t think it was an issue around there, but the imposter syndrome came from whether or not the rest of the team saw that same confidence in my ability and how I could lead them in. I mean, a lot of these people were older than me, they were more experienced than me.
0:02:50 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:02:51 Ben Wright: And we had a really smart group of people in that business. It was, you know, of those 200 and let’s call it 250 odd crew that we had, there was 80 to 100 of those that were really well educated and intelligent people. And often our subcontractors were business owners who were very successful in their own right. So I have definitely struggled.
0:03:09 Jemimah Ashley: And you look at it and just go, what am I doing here? And people are listening to me and relying on me. It’s super common.
0:03:17 Ben Wright: Yeah. And look, it was never an issue around whether or not I thought I could get there and do it myself. It was more whether or not people would follow what I was putting out there. So this is one for you, Jemimah, that you’re gonna lead today around imposter syndrome. So let’s get into it. Yeah.
0:03:30 Jemimah Ashley: So I deal with imposter syndrome on a regular basis with a lot of my clients, and I certainly have had battled my own demons with this. When I started a business after coming out of law enforcement, everyone’s going, well, what do you mean? I was very niche and an expert in one specific area, and suddenly I’m playing in a different area. I also happen to be born with. And I don’t know the actual genetic term for this, but it was. I was born with a how hard can it be? Gene, which means I just look at something and go, I think I now have enough delusion that I, for most part, could learn how to do something.
And that has made me extremely delusional, but also very lucky in many ways, because I just. Sometimes it overrides the imposter syndrome. I talk to my clients about this, or almost every week, this comes up with someone. And this comes often from, I’ve been nominated for an award. I’ve got a TV interview, I’m going to be speaking at an event. That’s a really big deal. And they come to me and they say, I feel like an imposter. I feel like I shouldn’t. Why am I the person doing this? And the first thing I would say to them, you feel like an imposter probably at that point, because you are. You actually haven’t generally done the thing that you’re nervous about doing. I can tell you, Ben, and I don’t know a lot of this part of the story, but I can almost guarantee you that you, at that point were really paving a new path. This was like these new teams and these new contractors for you. This wasn’t a well trodden path. This wasn’t the everyday Monday. This was. You were making decisions as you were going along.
0:04:55 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. I mean, the business was growing really quickly. We’re doing a lot of things for the first time. Yeah.
0:05:00 Jemimah Ashley: I have a lot of conversations with a lot of leaders that are like, we. I just feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. And part of that is because you don’t. You actually don’t know what you’re doing at that point. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but that’s where we need to take stock.
I have a really great example of that I use with my clients and I hopefully this is really helpful for our listeners and maybe she as well. But we record in Noosa when we do these podcasts. They’re amazing. And one of the things is you have a pool. And one of the things that I’m always so excited, regardless of what time of year I visit, I’m getting in. Like, we have to do this, a pool. Do you know when. And I know that you’re an avid swimmer. You know when you jump into this pool water for the first time, you’ve had a really, really hot day. You spent the whole day out and about. It’s really warm. And you get to the pool and you’ve got your swimmers on and you jump in. And for that first five seconds, what happens when you hit that really cold water?
0:05:47 Ben Wright: You’re normally cold.
0:05:49 Jemimah Ashley: Really? And it like knocks your breath out of you, takes your breath away for a second. And then what happens after about 30.
0:05:54 Ben Wright: Seconds where you normalize? Yeah.
0:05:56 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah. And this is what I like to say about imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is when you’ve usually been in the normal, warmer temperature and suddenly you find yourself at the water’s edge and you’re having to jump in. You will have that second where you’re like, my heart is definitely going to stop. And when you’ve gotten in very cold water. And I know a lot of our. A lot of our listeners do a lot of the cold. The cold plunges and deep plunges and all for that. But there’s that minute where you’re like something. It is violently difficult across your body. And this is what I think imposter syndrome is. You’re doing something brand new and you’re getting a physiological reaction.
So today I want to go through the types of imposters that exist out there, because I think there’s actually a multitude. You’ve actually nailed one of them perfectly. And also kind of give some tips about what you can do when you hit that water. And it does take your breath away a little bit.
0:06:40 Jemimah Ashley: So the first one I want to talk about is the perfectionist. This is the person who just has to be right 100% of the time. And I will guarantee that’s probably where you were footing in. This is like, everyone’s going to catch me out. This is like, I have to have this perfect. Whereas more experienced business owners, I know that you as a leader look at people and go, you make a mistake, we’re going to fix it. Everyone is that forgiving normally, but we are so hard on ourselves. Perfectionists, they are probably the most common.
The second one is the superhero. They’re the person who maybe also scaled a little bit quickly and feels like they need to now know everything. Good leaders know that we have gaps. I, you know, actually don’t do a very good job of that. I’m going to get some help here. We’re the ones that go for the reach for things like that. Does that make sense?
0:07:24 Ben Wright: So we’ve got perfectionist and we’ve got superhero.
0:07:27 Jemimah Ashley: Yes. The next one is the natural genius. This person is unfortunately the most dangerous in this scenario because they’re the most difficult, because they’re the ones that won’t own up to it and go, I’m having a hard time here. Natural geniuses are people above IQ 130. They’re the people who have always had it come very easy who suddenly run into. And we can be a hybrid of all these. Suddenly run into. I don’t know how to do this. I actually have no idea what I’m doing. And for the first time, generally in a high performance space, they now need to ask for help.
0:08:04 Ben Wright: Right? Yeah. Okay. Makes sense.
0:08:06 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah. Doesn’t it? The next, the soloist, the person who’s always done it by themselves. You know, that person.
0:08:12 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:08:12 Jemimah Ashley: Starts every business by themselves, never does anything else.
0:08:14 Ben Wright: The Lone Ranger, we call them.
0:08:17 Jemimah Ashley: Little bit dangerous because they will not ask for help. They’re not coming up. They’re going to try to figure it out and they’re in that pool by themselves and usually drowning.
And finally, is the expert, the one that’s always know their things? I’ve always known this, so I would never not know this. Why would I not know this? I can figure it out and suddenly they can’t and they’re drowning in that pool. And that’s the problem.
0:08:36 Ben Wright: Okay, so we’ve got the perfectionist. We have the superhero.
0:08:42 Jemimah Ashley: Natural genius. The natural genius, the expert and the soloist.
0:08:47 Ben Wright: Right. Okay.
0:08:48 Jemimah Ashley: We can be a whole, whole bunch of these all in one. And for most expert, for most industry leaders, for people who are leaders here, you are almost always hitting in that superhero thing. You’ve always owned your stuff. You’re almost always a natural genius. You’re almost always got some element of perfectionism here. You can be hitting a lot of these different things. And the problem is you’re still in that water and no one’s helping.
0:09:12 Ben Wright: Right. Right. Okay, so tell me, What do we do? It’s great to be able to label ourselves because once we can label ourselves, then it allows us to be aware of where we’re at in life or where we’re at in that particular part of our journey and do something about it. Okay, so let’s say we come up and I am the superhero.
0:09:33 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah. Great.
0:09:34 Ben Wright: How can we go about working through this?
0:09:36 Jemimah Ashley: I know this thing all the time.
0:09:37 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:09:38 Jemimah Ashley: The first thing is we have to know where we are. Because this is the hardest part. We have to know we’re in that pool and that maybe things aren’t. We aren’t climatizing maybe as well as it is. I know, Ben, you love a good gap.
0:09:49 Ben Wright: I love a good gap.
0:09:50 Jemimah Ashley: You love identifying. We need to know what that thing is that’s stopping us from getting our head above water.
0:09:55 Ben Wright: Right.
0:09:55 Jemimah Ashley: We need to know. Okay. I’ve actually got a knowledge gap here. And we have to acknowledge it. And this is often, as you would know, one of the hardest parts. Because if you’ve got a natural born genius who’s always that person who always knew everything and is suddenly going for the. Often the first time. I actually don’t know how to do this or I can’t figure it out or I’m stuck here, you suddenly have these people who are extremely, extremely talented naturally going. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do here. Them to admit that. Almost near impossible.
0:10:28 Ben Wright: Okay, so let’s go. So what I want to really focus here, if we can, of the tips. Yeah. And what we do about it. So tip number one is to acknowledge the gaps.
0:10:36 Jemimah Ashley: Number two, you need to coach or a mentor. This is where people that you need to be able to go to. We all need. And I’m really, it is quite exhausting the amount of people I have to say, well, who is your support system? Who are the people? We always need to have a guiding star in our lives. We always need to have someone who is helping us. And this doesn’t have to be professional or completely paid. This can be someone that you just really know, like and trust. But go to them and say, hey, listen, I’ve got this problem, I’ve got this gap. We need to know I’ve got a gap. And secondly, we have to start acknowledging it to other people.
0:11:05 Ben Wright: And just quickly, if I just take people on a paradigm here, on a journey around your types of support and pros and cons. Right. So we’re going to have, if we’re starting at the real base level, support is going to be family and friends.
0:11:15 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:11:15 Ben Wright: They know you the best, but won’t always have the specific subject matter expertise to be able to help you.
0:11:21 Jemimah Ashley: But as we say, a problem shared is problem halved.
0:11:23 Ben Wright: Yeah. But they know.
0:11:24 Jemimah Ashley: So immediately just going, I think I’ve got this gap here.
0:11:27 Ben Wright: Yeah. Okay, so second one we explore. The second one here going to be generally going to be colleagues.
0:11:31 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:11:32 Ben Wright: So colleagues are often going to know you, but not to the intimate level that your family and friends will and they’ll have a level of subject matter expertise.
0:11:40 Jemimah Ashley: And also they’re going to be professional generally and give you business advice. Not just, you’ll be fine, you’ve got. They’re actually going to come at it from a very strategic business leadership perspective.
0:11:49 Ben Wright: Which works well when you need business advice. Doesn’t work so well when you need advice outside of that. Right. Each one of these has pros and cons. The third area you’re going to get to is generally going to be your leader.
0:11:59 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:11:59 Ben Wright: So your direct people manager. They are generally going to have more professional perspective. Definitely going to have subject matter expertise and they’re going to want to see you get it. Right. Because it obviously influences how they perform. Right. Downside here with a leader is you often feel you can’t be 100% open. So there can be some drawbacks there. Fourth one is a mentor.
Now, the difference between a mentor and a coach is that a mentor is generally free. They’re people that you call every now and then to get help at the moment, but they’re not people that can be there with you every single step of the journey because they generally just don’t have the time to be able to help.
0:12:30 Jemimah Ashley: It is usually an unpaid service and it usually is just I’m helping you out for this little issue or giving you some guidance here. A coach, in contrast, hold your hand most of the time. Does that weekly check in or even often at this point when we’re in a bit of a critical moment, often does almost a daily check in and does those check ins.
0:12:47 Ben Wright: So a mentor, we’re going to go to a mentor, generally they’re going to have great business perspectives. Normally they’re going to have as good a perspective generally as your coach is going to have. However, often a mentor, they won’t have the time to really unpack things with you. They’ll just be able to give you some steering advice. So some pros and cons there. Last one, being a coach. A coach is generally going to have a balance of everything that you’ve got before. Right. They’re going to know you, they’re going to have both your personal and business interests at heart. They’re going to have a level of subject matter expertise if you pick the right coach. Downside of a coach is you have to pay them.
0:13:20 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:13:21 Ben Wright: So there’s a financial return. Generally the upside from a coach is higher, but your financial contribution is also higher. So there’s five stages around your support crew and sorry to jump in because once we’ve identified the problem, we’re talking about the second point here, which is to get yourself some support to work through your imposter syndrome. All right.
0:13:38 Jemimah Ashley: At this level, one of the key things I recommend people do is they start to put a list of accomplishments. If you’re having the real moment where your head is not above that water in that pool, all of a sudden, I would recommend really strongly at this point, as you’re working with your mentor, coach, support system to actually itemize, who are you, what have you accomplished and what have you achieved? As leaders and experts, we are terrible at remembering this stuff.
0:14:03 Jemimah Ashley: I listen to people read my bio and I’m like, I’ve done some things that’s pretty impressive. And then, you know, lock myself out of the house tomorrow. And we are human. We forget this stuff because we deal with the thing. We’ve done it, we’ve accomplished it, we move to the next thing. So at this role, a really practical tool at this point with a coach, mentor or support is itemize. This is what I’ve done, this is what I’VE accomplished. This is what I managed to do. And when we have those really quite intrusive thoughts at that point, sometimes going back can be really, really helpful.
0:14:30 Ben Wright: Okay, great.
0:14:31 Jemimah Ashley: Number three.
0:14:31 Ben Wright: Cool. Keep going.
0:14:32 Jemimah Ashley: Control what we can. Figure out what is in our control. So at that point, often there is an education gap. And when we have that mentor and that coach and that support system, we know there’s a gap. We’ve started talking about it now, like, how do we fill it? How can we go and actually make changes to that? And sometimes, Ben, that’s going talking to a sales strategist, sometimes that’s getting other people involved in the business, sometimes that’s bringing on a 2IC at that point, especially when we’re scaling, especially around when we have bigger scale items happening and we’re really doing this unplanned path, that’s where we need that guidance coming in. Okay, we prep that list, we check it regularly. We figure out what our gaps are and try to really fill it.
0:15:13 Ben Wright: Okay, so number one here we’re talking about is acknowledge where you are.
0:15:16 Jemimah Ashley: Acknowledge where you are for sure.
0:15:17 Ben Wright: Number two is all about sitting down and getting some help. Right. We spoke about kind of five areas you can get some help from. Number three is to list your achievements.
0:15:28 Jemimah Ashley: Yes, absolutely. List your achievements in there for sure. And then figure out the gaps. Number four is figure out the gaps. And number five to shock to no one is now go and fill those gaps. Is learning every single day in this situation. There is an element, when you take that learning aspect, is there is going to be an aspect where you have to use the old term, fake it till you make it. I can tell you that there are times where I have been on a plane going to fly. You know, I remember one day, in a very personal experience, I was on a plane. I was boarded a plane in Canberra. I’m flying to Melbourne. I’m going to be speaking, like the Melbourne convention center to 2,000 people. I have a keynote and I’m waiting for them to call me and go, we’ve actually booked the wrong person. Sorry. Like, on what planet am I going to be on a panel with Barack Obama’s senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, who wants to hear what I’ve got to say in relation to millennials in the workforce with this woman. Are you joking?
And I remember thinking, what’s happening? And all I did was go. I really went through this process by myself. I was like, what’s the gap? I’m feeling? I’ve never done something like this before. Itemized was I the right person to be here. What support can I get? I’m on a plane. Not a whole lot I can do. Before Wi Fi was on a plane, showing my age a little bit there. Then it was, well, what are the gaps here? What do I need to actually know? I read through my list. What am I great at? And then I was like, now I have to run towards it a little bit.
0:16:50 Ben Wright: Yeah. Ball to a storm. Okay, fantastic. And look, the fake it till you make it term I generally will try to run with you’re paid to learn. The fake it till you make it. It just has connotations for me that can be that snakeskin type of salesperson. Even though it’s very, very common. I prefer to say, do you know what? Sometimes we’re on a journey where we’re actually getting paid to learn and improve. And the reason I like that is because for most people, when you recognize that you’re getting paid, it gives you that level of accountability to say, right, I need to step up to the plate. I need to step into the shoes I want to fill. I need to picture myself 12 months down the track and start to behave like I’m already at that point.
0:17:29 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah.
0:17:29 Ben Wright: So, okay, so I really like that. So we’ve got quickly your five types of imposter syndrome. Your superhero.
0:17:34 Jemimah Ashley: Yeah, Superhero. Perfectionist, Soloist.
0:17:37 Ben Wright: Yes.
0:17:38 Jemimah Ashley: Natural born genius. Then your expert.
0:17:40 Ben Wright: Okay. So if you can label yourself as one of those, then you get to.
0:17:44 Jemimah Ashley: Know where you’re at, all of them. Let’s be really clear. We’ll often find little aspects, perfectionism, particularly with high performance leaders, that the high performance anxiety that we get. I have to do this, I have to do it now, and it won’t look like normal anxiety. Let me be very clear here. When we have those, you might find yourself in all of those. It’s really important to acknowledge you might find yourself in all of these.
0:18:05 Ben Wright: Okay, excellent. So that then moves in, in terms of tips of improving, that moves into step number one, which is to acknowledge where you are. Step number two is to get some support.
0:18:14 Jemimah Ashley: Yes, absolutely right.
0:18:15 Ben Wright: And whether that be friends and family, colleagues, leaders, mentors or coaches, we’ve got five avenues there. Nice and easy. Number three, once you’ve got that support.
0:18:25 Jemimah Ashley: List the gaps, list your achievements.
0:18:29 Ben Wright: Excellent. So these are the things that you’ve done and you’re good at, which should give you some confidence.
0:18:35 Jemimah Ashley: And it should really take away that little voice that we all get that goes. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Well, actually, there is a Bunch of evidence. And you know, Ben, there’s ways of doing this. And something I teach is not just a list. Have a brag file on your computer. Have all the podcasts you’ve been on, all the accomplishments, all the things you’ve done, the great testimonials, the moments on these hits.
0:18:57 Ben Wright: Go and look at it.
0:18:58 Jemimah Ashley: There it is.
0:18:59 Ben Wright: Yeah. Even record a little audio that you can play back to yourself. All right, so we’ve identified achievements. Next one’s gaps.
0:19:04 Jemimah Ashley: Yes.
0:19:05 Ben Wright: So where are we at?
0:19:05 Jemimah Ashley: I need to do the gap here.
0:19:07 Ben Wright: Yep. Excellent.
0:19:08 Jemimah Ashley: And then your lovely phrasing. So we have to go now. Go and fill the gaps.
0:19:11 Ben Wright: Fill the gap. Perfect. Okay. Love it. All right. Some nice, chunky things there around Imposter syndrome for you. Big tip. Number one tip to focus on from the day,
0:19:19 Jemimah Ashley: I would say I really want to see people creating that sort of like, almost like a brag bar for themselves. I want you to have that list of accomplishments ready to go. The one thing about imposter syndrome, when you were thrown in that pool, it’s quite insidious. We may not necessarily know what’s coming, and it may hit you unexpectedly. It can be when things are going very well, when you take that next step, you’ve got that new hire, you’re doing the cool stuff. It can sometimes throw you a lot quicker than I think people realize and can take you down harder. Having that prep stuff ready to go for that brag bar and having that folder of those list of accomplishments can absolutely take this from being an extremely negative experience to being one that just happens.
0:20:05 Ben Wright: Okay, great. For me, my number one tip is actually very much the same, is make sure that you’re very clear on what you’re good at. Have it written down so that when you are struggling, you can look at it, you can refer to it, and away you go. Okay, fantastic. I think that brings today to a close. All right. Imposter syndrome is something that impacts us all. Really, really important. You’re reaching out to people that care and can help you. We’re here as your friends in business to be able to do that as well. Thank you very much for listening. Really look forward to what’s ahead next week.
0:20:34 Jemimah Ashley: See you guys.
0:20:34 Ben Wright: Bye for now.
