#089: Do You Feel Like a Fraud? Struggle With Self Confidence? Welcome to the Club!

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Well, hello. Hello and thank you for joining me for episode 89 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. Just a quick reminder, you can find detailed show notes for this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 89. You know, it was about 10 years ago that Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman were filming a movie together. And after the last day of shooting, both actors went to a restaurant and sat down at the bar and Hackman told Hoffman, let's get drunk. And they started drinking. And he looked at Hoffman straight in the eye and said, do you get the same feeling I get at the end of a film? And Hoffman said, well, what's that? And Hackman replied, you know, as if you're never going to work again. Not that you're never going to do another good piece of work, it's that you're never going to get hired again. That's my constant fear, isn't it? That I'm not good enough to keep getting hired. So here's a man who's won multiple Academy Awards, multiple Golden Globes over a decades long career, and he still feels like a fraud, like he's not good enough. And soon enough the world is going to find out that he's a subpar actor and, and it's all going to end. This happened to me the other day, meaning I read or actually saw a similar account while watching an interview between Jerry Seinfeld and Jimmy Fallon. And Jerry Seinfeld was the one interviewing Jimmy Fallon. It was a great, great interview. It's hilarious. And he asked Fallon, how often or first of all, do you ever feel right before you're about to go out on the stage that you're not going to be funny? And Fallon didn't hesitate. He said, oh my gosh, most of the time before that curtain opens, I ask myself, what am I doing here? Why are all these people out here? Why am I so popular? I'm not funny. I'm not good enough. Now he did say as soon as the curtain opens and he comes out there, that feeling quickly disappears. But many times when he's out there about to go on stage, he feels unworthy. So let me ask you, do you sometimes feel like a fraud? Do you sometimes Feel like you're not good enough, like you're going to be found out soon enough and any and all of your successes so far are just going to be completely undeserved. And if you feel that way, I'm here to tell you that you're not alone. Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, Jimmy Fallon, and many other people many of us consider incredibly talented, they often feel the same way. I talked about this back in episode 22, which is titled 7 Tips for Developing Stronger Self Confidence. But what I'd like to do in this episode is I want to do something different. I want to give you a taste for how common this imposter syndrome is, because I really believe that part of overcoming it is being aware of the fact that even the most talented people out there, the people who are at the top of their game, the biggest performers in their industry, the people you look up to and who appear to really have it all under control and have their act together, all these people feel unworthy and experience low self esteem from time to time. And in many cases, as you'll soon see, it happens quite frequently. I don't know about you, but I feel so much better when I realize that I'm not alone. And, you know, the best in their field, the people who just are killing it, the people who are so successful and so visibly successful and so obviously great at what they do, struggle with this stuff. Then that gives me hope because it makes me realize that it's just part of being human. You know, it's just because you've achieved a certain level of success or mastery doesn't mean that you're not going to fall every once in a while or that you're going to not feel like a failure or that you're not good enough. So let me go through just a handful. I did some research this week and found all kinds of examples. I mean, I could fill a whole hour or two of this show with all the examples that I found, but I wanted to kind of sprinkle in a bunch of different examples from people you already recognize. And admittedly, many of these people, most of them are actually celebrities. But I chose celebrities because these are people who are supposed to be the most self confident people on earth. At least that's the assumption many of us make. And I also wanted to pick people that you would recognize. Mariah Carey has said, and I quote, I understand that people think I am a ditzy moron. And she said this back in 2009 in an interview. At that point she had released 11 CDs. She had acted in five Hollywood films and she had won over 200 music awards. She said, I've always had really low self esteem and I still do. Here's someone who is at the top of her game, has achieved tremendous success as a music artist and she still struggles with her self esteem. The musician David Bowie, one of the most accomplished musicians in the 20th century and still today, was looking back on his amazing rise to superstardom. And he confessed that while filling auditoriums with raving fans in the early 1970s, and I quote, I had enormous self image problems and very low self esteem, which I hid behind obsessive writing and performing. I was driven to get through life very quickly. I really felt so utterly inadequate. I thought the work, meaning songwriting, recording, performing was the only thing of value. Wow. From David Bowie, this just high profile performer who on the outside you'd never think has a self confidence problem. Demi Moore, the actress Demi Moore has said, and I quote, what scares me is that I'm going to ultimately find out at the end of my life that I'm really not lovable, that I'm not worthy of being loved, that there's something fundamentally wrong with me and that I wasn't wanted here in the first place. Wow, that is profound and so sad and yet so many of us sometimes feel very similarly, as if, you know what, we're just not worthy. We're not loved. What's going on? Why am I here? Why do people even love what I do? Here's one of my favorites, Meryl Streep. And I quote, she said, I have varying degrees of confidence and self loathing. You can have a perfectly horrible day where you doubt your talent or that you're boring and they're going to find out that you don't know what you're doing. And you think, why would anyone want to see me again in a movie? And I don't know how to act anyway, so why am I doing this? Now? This one is a huge shocker for me because I was just watching a movie with my wife the other day with Meryl Streep, and I was in awe at how amazingly talented she is. This lady has played everybody, you know, from Margaret Thatcher to Julia Child to, I mean, just every conceivable character. She's not one dimensional like so many others who have achieved similar fame. She can do it all. Very, very versatile, extremely talented. And she said, here we go. She said, I'm boring. And people are going to find out soon enough that I don't know what I'm doing. Why would anyone want to see me in a movie again? That's just remarkable. I find it hard to believe. The late Maya Angelou, she was an award winning author and poet, said, I have written 11 books but each time I think, uh, oh, they're going to find out now I've run a game on everybody and they're going to find me out again. Shocking. Eleven books, award winning, celebrated, hard to believe. Really hard to believe. The actor Will Smith said, and I quote, I still doubt myself every single day. What people believe is my self confidence is actually my reaction to fear. Whoa. Here I thought, wow, this guy, he's such a ham. I mean he's out there, he seems so confident, he's so good at what he does. Fantastic actor, super funny and he doubts himself every single day. Every single day. The singer Rihanna, she might seem very confident on the outside, but it's been said that she gets so nervous before events that she needs professional help. And even recently I believe last year hired a coach to help her with this struggle which had gotten way out of control. One of the highest paid music performers today is having such a hard time with her self confidence that she had to hire someone. I believe she paid half a million pounds for the help. That's how bad it had gotten. Now I'll go ahead and include the links in the show notes if you want to read where I found some of this information came from a couple of different articles I found online and a lot of it also came from the book the Secret Thoughts of Successful Women. Why Capable People Suffer from the Imposter Syndrome and How to Thrive in Spite of it by Dr. Valerie Young. Encourage you to check it out if you'd like to see more. But I hope that gives you just kind of a basic idea of who else is struggling with this. People you'd never think would have a self confidence problem. Let's look at a couple historical figures and there's many of these out there. I chose two. Theodore Roosevelt was the first one. Now Theodore Roosevelt and I had read a little bit about him. I read the book and the name escapes me right now about his adventures in the Amazon forest. He nearly died down there. This is after his presidency and caught malaria pretty bad. But this is again years later. So I knew a little bit about his life from of course back in school and then just from this account. But he was born to wealth, he was born to a wealthy New York family and you think, you know that's. A lot of people think that's the best you could do, you know, if you're born to a wealthy family, well, you're going to automatically do well. But he didn't. He struggled from day one. He was very sickly as a child. He had severe asthma. It was very debilitating. And he was very nervous and timid as a kid. But with his father's encouragement, he began exercising and eventually his father hired a boxing coach for him. And in addition, he read about courageous men and he developed a very strong desire to be like them. And in fact, I believe, if I remember correctly, and don't quote me on this, but it's just from memory, he even asked his parents to build a gym for him in the house. He couldn't really leave. And on his own he developed this exercise routine that was very, very demanding, very rigorous. And he basically got himself into great shape and great health through this program that he designed. And he, he alone had the discipline to execute. So Theodore Roosevelt became governor of New York in 1898, and he was vice president when President McKinley was killed in 1900. So he ended up becoming the youngest person to be president. But then he won on his own accord by a landslide in 1904. And of course, the rest is history. One of the most celebrated presidents in American history, Albert Einstein, was considered a slow learner. And some people suspect that he may have had dyslexia. He was very shy and quiet as a kid. At age nine, he went to high school where only three to four hours a week were spent on math and science, which is unfortunate because that's what he really excelled in. It was only at home that Einstein could really learn what he wanted and explore these different topics. He eventually was either asked to leave high school or he just dropped out. So he applied to the Zurich Polytechnic in Switzerland. And even though he passed the science and math sections, he still failed the general section. So he couldn't get in. He had to go to another school. Unfortunately, there he flourished because he participated in more hands on activities and had more opportunities for conceptual thinking. Now you know the rest of the story, right? Einstein developed the general theory of, I can't speak today, the theory of relativity. In physics, he created the formula E equals MC squared to explain the relationship between mass and energy. And he received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921. Now it's not just historical figures, it's not just celebrities, it's not just famous musicians, it's also plenty of high achieving people. Today I know several CEOs, several incredibly successful entrepreneurs and high achieving individuals. Who suffer from either low self esteem or the imposter syndrome. And you never know it on the outside. But as I've gotten to know these people over the years, they have either confided that in me or in others. And it's many cases come as a shock. It's prevalent out there, folks. This happens. You're not alone. That people can be, despite their outside successes, can often feel very lonely and insecure on the inside. You know, I've shared with this with some folks before. But even to this day, when I land a new client, and many of you know that I don't take, I'm not really taking on any new freelance clients. 90% of my time, energy and income come from or are spent on coaching and training these days. But every once in a while I will take on a new client. I have two clients that I've had for a long time whom I still do work for. And about once a year I still take on a new client. In many cases it's not a brand new client. It's someone who I've worked with before who contacts me out of the blue. They're with a new company and they want to know if I'll consider doing something for them. Writing a white paper or a case study or their new web copy, whatever it might be. And I'll consider it. And some cases again, about once a year I will take one on. And to this day, even when I take on a new client, and again, keep in mind, these are people whom I've worked with before. So it's not totally brand new, it's a new company. But even then I'm still very nervous and very insecure on the inside. It may not appear that way, but I'm always nervous to take on a new client and to start something new in. My biggest fear is, wow, I don't know if I'll be able to grasp this. I don't know if I'll be able to give them what they want. I don't know if I'll be able to please them with my work. I don't know if I'm good enough to take on this work even to this day. As successful as I have been as a freelancer now for over almost 13 years, it still is still a problem. Now I'm not an expert on this stuff. So what I wanted to do here again is just give you a sense for how common this is and hopefully by doing that, make you feel a little better and make you realize that, you know, you're not the only one struggling with this. I'm struggling with it. Many people who you think don't have a problem with self confidence struggle with this stuff. And again, I'm not an expert, but I wanted to share this with you today and just offer you a handful of solutions. Episode 22 of the podcast again has some more concrete ideas, but I wanted to focus on three ideas today to help you move forward anyway. Because look, we all have to keep. We all have to keep moving. We all have to keep fighting the good fight. And it's okay to stop and realize, you know what? I need to accept the fact that I'm struggling with my self confidence right now. It's okay. Accept it, see it for what it is. Accept it, see it, and then move anyway. So the first thing I would say is, look, again, realizing you're not alone. Some of the highest performing people in every profession struggle with imposter syndrome. So that's number one, we've talked about this already. Number two, I just mentioned it. Do it anyway. Keep moving forward. Keep plowing right through these obstacles in spite of your fears and insecurities. Feel that fear. Accept the fact that you're struggling with with it, that's fine. And just do it anyway. You know, just bulldoze right through it. Now, in some cases, that's going to be very, very difficult. You may not be able to do it all at once. You may have to do one thing at a time, that's fine, but don't let it paralyze you. You know, do what you can, but keep moving forward. And the third thing I wanted to suggest is to go outside of yourself. You know, what I've noticed with all these examples I've given you is that all of this is based on some story that each of us is telling ourselves. We're telling ourselves a story that to the outside world is not true. That's not the story they're seeing, that's not the story they're telling themselves about you. So I want you to go outside of yourself and I want you to reach out to a handful of people. And specifically I want you to reach out to five to seven people. It's okay. If it's a few more, that's fine. But a minimum of five to seven people, and I want you to send them a brief email message. Now, before I read you the message and I'll include this in the show notes, I want you to select people who know you well, people with whom you've had a relationship for at least two or three Years, hopefully even longer in some cases. And if possible, people from different roles in your life. Now, it would really help if maybe half of them or so know you from a business standpoint through one of your business roles, right? Whether it's in your current role or in a previous job, anything like that. People who've known you in a business setting, in a work setting. So half of them try to make them from that. The others could be from anything. You know, it could be from maybe your church, someone you've, you know, a good friend you've had for 15 years, anything like that. You could approach your spouse or significant other. But I'd rather you not. I'd rather you go out to people who know you really well, but you don't necessarily live with. And let me just read you the email that I'd like you to send them and just do this word for word. You're free, of course, to adapt it, but it's okay to send just like this. Hi, Jack, I'm working through a personal development exercise and one of my assignments is to get feedback on the following question from a handful of people who know me well. What do you see as my unique capability? In other words, what do I naturally do better than most other people? You know, I'm not looking for a ton of detail here, just a few sentences. I need it by next blank, if possible. And I would just give them three to five days. Thanks in advance. That's it. Don't, don't try to set it up any more than you already have here. Don't try to just add and elaborate. Just keep it very simple, be very specific in every way and get it out. In fact, I urge you to start doing this today, tomorrow at the latest. Don't wait. I hope you take me seriously. I hope you do this and I hope you do it now. If you don't do it now, if you don't do it today or tomorrow, you're going to forget about it. So I urge you to try this and I want you to be ready to receive some positive comments and some beautiful feedback that you didn't even know was, was possible or was out there. This has been one of the most powerful exercises I've done in a long time. When I did this a few years ago, I mean, it drove me to tears with some of the responses. In fact, I printed them all out. I keep them in a file that I revisit about once, sometimes twice a year when I'm feeling like I have nothing to offer. You know, I'm launching a new training program or coaching program. And I struggle with whether or not people are going to see it as valuable, whether or not people are going to see me as valuable and helpful. And let's say things aren't going well. And, you know, I just start feeling like my work is just not good enough. And I pull out these printed emails and they change my outlook and that story that I'm telling myself very, very quickly. So I want you to be ready to receive some very powerful messages that are very sincere and you need to hear that. These are messages you need to hear. Almost everyone who has done this, and this is part of what I ask many of my coaching clients to do, by the way, almost everyone I've urged to do this, who has actually done it, comes back to me and says, wow, Ed, that was very, very powerful. I've never had anyone say that it was a waste of time that they could have done without it. So I think you're going to get a lot out of that. And again, if they move you, if some of these messages are you find powerful, I encourage you to print them, put them in a file, put them somewhere where you can go back to them when you need them the most. So, folks, that's it for today. A short episode this week, but I hope that this is helpful and that this message came to you at the right time. And you know, if it's, if you're not going through this right now, just keep in mind that you can always come back to this here at episode 89 and listen to this message again when, when you're feeling as if you have nothing to offer and you need to be reminded of the fact that you are valuable, that you have tremendous gifts to offer to the world, to your clients, to those who love you. And I want you to remember that it's an important thing for all of us. So again, you can grab the detail show notes@b2b launcher.com episode 89 and I wanted to remind you that you can also subscribe to this podcast on itunes and if you have a smartphone, if you're not aware of it, you can actually subscribe to the podcast through your podcast app. So iOS for your iPhone comes pre bundled with a podcast app, makes this extremely easy. And podcasts are automatically uploaded there when you subscribe. And if you ever stuck in traffic or you're out for a walk or out at the gym or mowing the lawn, you always have very fast, immediate access to this show and any other shows that you might choose to subscribe on Android. There are several podcasts application options. Just go to the App App Store and you can download them there. But I think this is the best and most practical way to subscribe to podcasts and make sure you always have good content at your fingertips. So that brings us to the end of the episode. I am your host, Ed Gandia. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you have an awesome day. The High Income Business Writing Podcast Podcast is a production of B to B Business Launcher. Learn more@b2b launcher.com.