Lynn Smith talks to Dr. Don Wood about beating imposter syndrome through vulnerability. She shares how harsh media criticism and a panic attack during a keynote taught her that audiences connect with honesty, not perfection, and how coaching helps high performers manage anxiety on stage.
Chapters
Can you share a little bit about what you dealt with and what you learned from your experience?
Yeah, and I teach this now. Vulnerability equals connection. Connection is how we become great communicators. And so when I'm training someone to show up and be great on camera and be confident, it's because they're able to connect with that face and that person on the other side of the camera lens. And you can't do that without being vulnerable. And so some of the things that I worked into my teachings were the struggles that I had early on in my career when I was told I would never make it in television because I was so terrible, which was part partially true. You have to learn this skill. I had to learn how to be good on camera, but I was told I was never good enough. Told I was too fat, too thin, needed to wear glasses to look smart. I then, in this phase in my career, had to do more public speaking. And spoiler alert, I was terrified of public speaking. And I actually had what I think was a version of a panic attack during a keynote, which I'd never had one before. But it really forced me to look at what I realized was a total weakness. It just wasn't something I was good at. And instead of letting it stop me from that being a part of my business, I hired a keynote coach. I did some of the trainings that I did with you. And you overcome the things that hold you back in order to become the greatest communicator, the greatest keynote speaker, or just more optimized performance in your career.
Well, it's amazing because I think that vulnerability, like you said, is so important. And I think that's what helps you so much to be successful, successful with your clients. I think it's what works on the inspired performance program. Because I'm also vulnerable about all the things that have gone on for my wife and my daughter and how we dealt with that. And people can connect to that. They go, oh, that sounds like me, right?
Validator.
Yeah. Because they think they're the only ones dealing with it. And so a lot of people show up with this imposter syndrome is like, what happens if somebody figures me out, figures out that I'm dealing with anxiety. And what they're always shocked about is I work with, like world class athletes, you know, some of the people, Major league baseball player, all star, multiple time all star, phenomenal career, hall of Famer guy, right, who told me about all the anxiety dealt with and all the players. He goes on the bench, he goes, all those guys were Dealing with the same things, you just don't see it because they perform so well and like what you were doing, so everybody would look at you and go, oh, you couldn't possibly have had that issue. Right. But you can still be a high performer dealing with those same issues. And that's why with the inspired performance program, we focus on performance. Imagine what happens when you get the things that are interfering with you getting to that next gear out of the way. And that's really what we focus on.
Yeah, that's what I've experienced and just seeing, it's why many of my clients have gone to as well. So a lot of what you're talking about, especially when it comes to imposter syndrome, what I, what I really coach with my clients is the, the brain bully. So that brain bully is the voice that's in your head saying you're not good enough. Why would anyone want to hear from you? You're really going to screw this up. You're going to have another panic attack on stage. And when you learn how to tame that brain bully or beat it, that's when you can perform at levels that maybe you don't even know are possible. So anytime I've sent a client your way, it's because I've seen that what it is that's holding them back. That brain bully is way more powerful than due to things that are going on in their life that, that I can't solve, that I don't have the Dr. Lynn Smith in front to solve. And it, it's two parts. It's, it's having the skill and getting the education and the training in order to be that way. But then addressing really deep rooted things that might be the reason that you either lack the confidence or you're afraid to do something or that brain bully.
Is so powerful and it affects so many people and yet they don't want to admit it. Right. Because it's the same thing. If you're an executive, you're the CEO of an organization and you go to HR and tell them I'm having panic attacks, what's going to happen?
You want to start the recruitment process.
That's right. You want to start training your replacement.
Yeah. I just had this conversation with somebody who wants their CEO to get media trained. And I told her, I said, you know, the reason I like working with CEOs so much is because they put on the same front. I had to as a news anchor for so long because I had my team. And if I was nervous or panicked in a breaking news situation. My producers would be like, call up the red phone. Like, get her off camera. She is not ready for this. So you have to put on that strong front for all of those people internally. If you can get an external person, and this is a lot of what you serve other people as well, if you can get an external person where they can be their vulnerable self and say, I'm afraid of saying the wrong thing. I'm afraid of screwing up. I get really nervous and have a version of a panic attack when I go do these things. I need you to help me. And they don't have to worry that they're going to see me in a leadership meeting and then I'm going to judge them or tell hr, hey, I'm worried about Bob or Susie that's out there and having panic attacks in our, in our board meetings. If they can have that external source of a confidant, plus education on how to overcome it. It's the secret sauce for many of these CEOs, because as you point out, I would argue everybody has a brain bully. And if you don't, you're probably a sociopath or a narcissist. It's a human, human nature. It's our brain. And I would love for to kick this back and become the interviewee on this. Our brain, correct me if I'm wrong, is designed to protect us from threats. So it doesn't know if that keynote that we have to go up and, and perform on is a lion about to kill us. So it operates as if it needs to protect us from that. But I would love your expertise on that particular topic.
