Dealing with imposter syndrome as an ADHD entrepreneur

Hey, new listener. Thanks so much for checking us out. And there's a good chance you have adhd, so I quickly wanted to ask you to please follow this podcast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever app you're listening to this on, don't leave it until later because you will forget. Thank you. Squirrel. Squirrel. Let's talk about imposter syndrome and how you can stop being a massive weenie. Squirrel. Squirrel. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast. Squirrel. The funny thing about talking about imposter syndrome is your mind immediately goes to, oh, my God, I'm imposter. Who am I to talk about imposter syndrome? Do I actually have imposter syndrome? I feel like an imposter in this moment. So imposter syndrome happens to everyone. Absolutely everyone. If you don't experience imposter syndrome, then the reason is you're a sociopath. And honestly, if you're a sociopath, I don't want you listening to my podcast. Please stop right now, please. And thank you. For the rest of you, good news. You're not a sociopath. Congratulations. The thing about imposter syndrome is it doesn't matter what you've achieved. It doesn't matter how many degrees you have, how long you've been working in your field, how many accolades you've gotten for your good work, it will still hit you, right? Imposter syndrome likes to come at you immediately after you've achieved something big. My clients, when they hit their first $10,000 month, they have what I call the 10K meltdown, because their mind goes to, okay, I accomplished this once. Now I have to accomplish it every single month going forward. And they immediately start doubting if they're going to be able to do it. They start questioning their abilities, they start questioning their. The quality of the work that they're providing their clients. They immediately become afraid that people aren't going to be happy enough with what they're providing. Imposter syndrome also likes to come at you when you're sick, when you're tired, when you're hangry, if you've been injured. Basically any time where you're not a hundred percent, that's when those. Those saboteur, like nasty Nelly voices like to come out and tell you all the things that you do wrong and all the reasons you're not qualified or good enough and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So just a reminder for when the next time you're injured this sounds like an injury like lawyer commercial at this moment. Like, are you injured? Are you hangry? Did you not get enough sleep last night? Blah, blah, blah. That's when your imposter syndrome is going to be its worst. That is when that voice is gonna start churning about all the bad things that could happen to you. And I want you to have a lot of compassion for yourself in those moments. And sometimes it's just helpful to tell those voices to shut up. And if they do need to talk, you can say cool. Like, you can. You can tell me all the bad things that'll happen, but I'm not gonna listen because I know that likely none of them are gonna happen. So it's funny to be talking about this right now because recently a big thing just happened for me and this podcast. We literally, when we're recording this at 4:00am this morning, hit the top 5% podcasts globally, which is absolutely insane to me. And it's insane to me because I'm still reckoning with this idea that I'm a podcaster. This is the 52nd episode that we've done. We've been doing this for a full year now. And yet, in my mind, because I don't do any of the background podcasting stuff, I just show up and talk at Neil, my producer, producer for a couple hours a few times a month. He does all the difficult editing and podcasting, uploading stuff. I don't even know any of the terminology. Like, I don't even know what IAB means. He just had to explain that to me. And if you don't know what IAB means, Neil, can you explain what IAB means? Sure. It stands for Internet Advertising Bureau, and it's the official podcast measurement system. Great. So that's what that is. He's giggling and turning red in this moment. So this massive thing just happened for our podcast. We're now IAB certified the top 5% globally. And in my mind, it doesn't really mean anything because I still, in my mind, like, am not giving myself credit for being a podcaster. And if you're listening to this podcast, you're like, you know, I'm a podcaster because you're literally listening to my podcast. But this is how irrational imposter syndrome is, right? Imposter syndrome doesn't actually look at all the evidence of you being good at what you do or the fact that you just do takes everything you've ever built up in your life or all the evidence you've gathered in your life about why you're a screw up, like how you're not good enough, ways in which you're incapable. And it creates this whole argument for why you shouldn't be doing this. This is especially true for those of you with adhd. And I say those of you with ADHD because I've recently been made aware that there are some neurotypicals who actually listen to this podcast. And I, you know, I want to give you guys a little nod. You are welcome here as well. For business owners with adhd, you've been raised in a world that is designed for neurotypicals. I can't speak for your school because I, you know, obviously you're just, you're not just a listener, but you're a listener and I don't know who you are, but I know the public schools that I went to, they had very strict back to back schedules. You know, you went from 40 minutes in math or 45 minutes in math class to 45 minutes in French class to 45 minutes in history with 5 minutes in between, by the way. My high school was a quarter of a mile long. It was just like a massive hallway. This is a fun fact about Howard High School. It was just a massive hallway that had buildings like jutting off on the side. So, like, if you had a class class on one end, then you had to like run to the other end to make it on time. But you know, for ADHD me, that wasn't enough transition time. So I would get to the next class, I'd have to settle in. It would take me like 25 minutes to settle in. I wouldn't be paying attention because I was still settling into this new environment and this new person and these new people around me and this new topic. And then the teacher would call me out for not paying attention. So then me just being there wasn't enough. I wasn't enough, you know, and especially if the topic was not interesting to me, good luck trying to get me to pay attention at all. Because folks with adhd, we are really good at focusing on stuff that we're interested in. If we're not interested, it's very difficult for us. That whole experience, what that does to a young person that lasts their entire life is it tells them, like, what you do just isn't good enough. How you show up isn't good enough. You can try as hard as you can and yet it will never be enough for the people around you. And it's not like any. I mean, maybe you had a teacher who told you this at one point. And if that's the case, I'm sorry. And screw them. Like if there is a hell, they should go there. But this isn't something that most kids are told outright. It's something that they internalize because the world around them is not set up for them. And what does that do to an adult who has adhd, who's starting a business and who struggles with imposter syndrome? Well, guess what? That imposter voice in your head has a whole lot more evidence to use against you. You know, it doesn't matter your accomplishments, because if you're never going to be good enough for anything, like, it could all go away. There's this term that is used in the coaching community, or at least the, like the coactive coaching community where I got trained. And it's called like emotional jet lag, right? Emotional and mental jet lag. So it's. I want you to imagine you work in a corporate job and you've been promoted to CEO and yet in your mind you still feel like a director. You still feel like there should be people telling you what to do. You need approval from others. When you are the person that is giving approval. Your mind hasn't caught up with your change in status. Your mind hasn't caught up with the change in circumstances and your role in the world. Now this happens for business owners too. It's especially hard when you've spent a few years struggling to make this business work and all of a sudden it's working and you're making money and you have happy clients and you're growing your team and yet emotionally and mentally, you're going to be operating like you're still in that struggle, like it's still live or die. Like every decision is live or die. Every dollar you bring in is critical because you're still jet lagged back to the struggle times. If this is happening for you, I want you to know you're not crazy. This is normal. This happens to all of us. Again, if you're not a sociopath and if you're still listening and you're a sociopath, go away. I told you, as they say in Mean Girls, you can't sit with us. The real danger of imposter syndrome is if you believe it. If you let it run your life, it will keep you from doing incredible things. There's this term, it's Australian, it's called Tall Poppy syndrome. It's a metaphor based on, you know, if you want to have a garden full of beautiful uniform poppies, what happens? One of those poppies gets too tall, you have to lop it off, you have to cut it off, you have to bring it down a notch. Apparently, this happens a lot in Australia. So if you're in Australia, don't do this to yourself especially, but we do this to ourselves. And this is what imposter syndrome will do to you. You know, when you start having some success because you have this jet lag around your own success and you don't, you don't identify with it and you feel like you're fooling everyone. This is a major trick that you're pulling or a major con that you're pulling on the whole world that they now believe that you're capable in this way when you're actually not. You will actually do things to sabotage your own further success. You will keep yourself from getting too tall. You will turn down opportunities to grow your business, your impact, and your income. This happened to me this past year. I was approached by two people who I, I greatly admire wanting to start a business with me, two separate businesses, and I literally had to go through several sessions with my therapist around this belief that, like, they don't, like, oh, hold on, I'm getting, I'm getting flustered just talking about this. I had to have several sessions with my therapist just because I felt like I had tricked them. I felt like these people who've known me for years, who've been friends with me and colleagues of mine for years were mistaken in the expertise that I bring to the table and, and in these two separate phone calls, you know, when they asked me if I would partner with them on these projects, my voice would say yes, and my body, I felt my. My shoulders tense up. You know, I felt that rolling in my stomach of, oh, my God, like, what if they find out that I'm not qualified? You know, they were wanting to partner with me for my sales expertise. I've been in sales for a very long time. I train on sales. I trained one of them on sales, actually. They had real life experience as to how effective my sales training is. And yet my imposter syndrome had me freaking out that they would be disappointed that I wouldn't be good enough. Right. Even though I had very clear evidence that I am good enough, that I am capable, and that they have enough evidence to be able to make this decision and not regret it. And I share this with you because I really want you to see how insidious imposter syndrome can be, how it can take you down even when you are good enough. And it doesn't matter what you've accomplished up to that point. There are surgeons who've been operating on other human beings for 25 years who have imposter syndrome. There are criminal attorneys who have been prosecuting criminals for 25 years who feel like they aren't qualified enough. There are CEOs and government officials and people who have actual power in the world who also have imposter syndrome. There are millionaire entrepreneurs who have been massively successful in their business. And the reason they're massively successful is not that they don't have imposter syndrome. It's that they don't let their imposter syndrome drive their life. And it's so easy to look at these people and be like, oh my God. Well, I can never be that. That's not true. You're not going to be that right now. You know, you're, you haven't been doing this long enough to be where they are. Maybe you have been letting your imposter syndrome make some decisions for you that's going to prevent you from getting there. But what helped them get there is they didn't make decisions based on what their imposter syndrome voice was telling them. They made better decisions, decisions based on what they wanted to create in the world, based on what goals they wanted to reach. And they were strategic in breaking down those goals into little itty bitty action steps that would allow them to actually do the things without barfing. And I hope you have big goals. I hope you have a massive dream that feels out of reach right now. And if, when you think about those goals in that dream, you feel like it's impossible, you feel like it is just too massive a project for you to ever take on and actually finish. I want to remind you, how do you, how do you eat an elephant? You know, it's an age old joke. You, you don't eat it in one bite. You eat it, you know, little bite by bite. You know, you can't eat a whole elephant in one sitting. It's impossible. Not that we're eating elephants. We like elephants. They're also endangered. Okay? I'm not advocating for eating or killing elephants. Actually, I'm very anti killing elephants. They're one of my favorite animals. The fun fact about elephants is that they are actually matriarchal and the grandmothers run the groups, the herds, and they have incredible memories. All right? Like, elephants are the coolest. Just a little side note commercial for elephants. There's. Oh my God, there's this TikTok trend that's been going on about asking men how often they think about the Roman Empire, which I think is massively unfair, because I think. I think asking anyone with ADHD how often they think about random things, you'll get fun answers. And I'm really resentful that only the men are getting asked this question because I think about the Roman Empire a lot. I think about elephants a lot. I think about a lot of random shit a lot. Okay, Anyway, back to imposter syndrome. Just like you can't eat a metaphorical elephant at once, you're not going to be able to achieve your goals all at once. Okay. They're going to take time. It's so funny. So when a client starts with me and they're just getting started on social media, we have to work through this period where they're obsessed with going viral, right? They're obsessed with it. They think that they see all these social media influencers who have millions of followers, who have these videos that just pop off and get tons of comments and likes and make them famous overnight. My clients actually don't want that. That's actually not going to be good for their businesses. Right. It's also going to be really damaging to their psyche. I want you to imagine, you know, you've never done public speaking before, and maybe you're not even afraid of public speaking. You just haven't done it, and your first public speaking event is in front of 20,000 people. That is going to really freak you the out. Maybe so much that you screw it up, maybe so much that you don't go out on stage. Going viral too soon can actually prevent you from showing up afterwards. But if you were to speak in front of 200 people first, and then 500 people, and then a thousand people, and then 5,000 people, that incremental growth, your mind and your emotions will be able to keep up with it. You'll be able to recover from that jet lag. If you want your imposter syndrome to completely kick off, then go viral. And. And I'll be honest, my very first podcast, I was terrified of recording. I love going live. I love doing video content because I have direct comments. I can kind of see how people are reacting to this. Podcasting is completely blind, okay? You don't know who's listening, where they are, who they are. There's no immediate feedback. You know, it's really rare for podcast listeners to leave a review, which, by the way, if you haven't left a review, please do. I'd love to hear how you're Receiving this. And literally when that first episode went live, I was terrified to tell anyone about it. I made myself text my family about my first podcast episode, and immediately after I sent that text to my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, I regretted it. I was terrified that they were actually going to listen to it. If my podcast producer, in that moment had told me that 10,000 people were going to listen to my episodes, I probably wouldn't have recorded. I probably would have been like, oh, you know what? This is probably a bad idea. I think I'm gonna back away. Thank you so much for your advice. I support podcasts for other humans, but this sounds too much for me. No, no, no, no. Which brings me to my point, is that our imposter syndrome is really our inner weenie. It's all the fear that we have about what people are gonna think of us, and are we gonna fail. And if we do fail, and when we do fail, are people gonna make fun of us? Are they gonna reject us for it? And what do we say about weenies? We say, stop being a weenie, because your weenie is never going to build a successful business. Your inner weenie is never going to have truly fulfilling and happy relationships, because a weenie doesn't know not to settle for the bare bones in life. If you're running your life like your inner weenie, you're not holding out for what's going to make you happiest. You're not putting your gifts out into the world because you're being too afraid of how they're going to be received. And that's bull. We don't want that. Because what is it that Dr. Seuss says? There's no one who's more you or than you. And when you're truly being authentic, when you're actually being brave and putting yourself out there and giving whatever gift it is that you have to the world. Yes, there will be people who don't like you. Yes, there will be people who don't get it and people who don't agree with you, and people who for some reason think that you look like the bully that they had in middle school and immediately have a bad impression of you. You have no control over that. But there will also be people who desperately need to hear from you, who need your help. And the only way they can get your help is if you have the ovaries to actually show up in the world. If you get over your imposter syndrome, and if you find yourself being run by your imposter syndrome too often and it's really limiting your growth. Here are a few things that you can do. Oh, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first, Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Squirrel. Join the weeniecast hyperfocus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls. Turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with free prank calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month, it's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperFocus. And if you find yourself being run by your imposter syndrome too often and it's really limiting your growth, here are a few things that you can do. Number one, I want you to make a list of everything that you're freaking out about, everything that you're worried you're not good enough at, anything that you feel like you lack, anything that feels like it is the danger zone for you reaching your goals. I want you to go through this list and I want you to cross out the shit that's not true. Like, you can absolutely be afraid that you're going to start a bakery and it's going to burn down. However, like, that's the reason we have fire codes in this country, and in most countries, you know, we have fire codes to prevent buildings from burning down. Unless you have a hobby as an arsonist, it's unlikely that your bakery is going to burn down. Okay? And of course, you can do things to prevent that, like having a sprinkler system, maybe having your bakery right next to the fire station. Who knows? You know, I think that's actually a great business strategy because firefighters do like baked goods anyway. So you're gonna back to the exercise. You're gonna cross off the absolute ridiculous fears that are coming up for you, okay? They're gone. Next, you're going to look at the items on this list that are actually things that you lack. Okay? So, like, for instance, if you want to be of movie animator, you know, you want to create like, the next Frozen or Tangled or, you know, other Disney film, because I can't think of anything that's not Disney, you probably need to learn how to animate. So if you don't know how to animate you should probably add that to the list of things that you need to do, like go to animation school. Might be helpful. Likewise, say you need a capital investment, say, to start your business. You know that you need $10,000 to cover the base expenses. Great. You're going to have to go and find that that is actually on, you know, an item to put on your shopping list. Then you're going to look for the stuff that you already have, and there's going to be a lot of things that you actually already have, you're already capable of, you don't actually need to worry about. And then honestly, you're going to look at the list of things that you need to do or you need to get. And you're going to get to work. You're going to go and get them, or you're going to go and do them. The next thing that you can do to get over imposter syndrome. You know, I reference burn books a lot because I love the movie Mean Girls. Anyway, I'm a firm believer that we all need to be collecting a brag book about ourselves. All your accomplishments, all the compliments that you get from people, any client testimonials, any good reviews you got from back in the day when you worked at job. You know, maybe a paper from college that you got an A plus on and your professor was really impressed with. You know, folks, with adhd, we have a little issue with object permanence. You know, it's one of the reasons why I stopped pre buying Christmas presents because I would buy them for people and then I would hide them in really amazing hiding spots they wouldn't find. Even though I doubt these people are going to be coming through my house and like going through my linen closet and then come Christmas time and be like, oh my God, I have to go get these people presents. Like, why didn't I do this beforehand? And then come like, I. Let's not, let's not even say spring cleaning, because we all know I do not do spring cleaning. It does not happen. All right? It's just, it's. Yeah, we're not going to go there. I'm not even going to lie to you and say, oh, when I spring clean, when I go to move from that place to another place, I discover all these things that I hit on myself, that once they were out of sight, they ceased to exist to me. This happens with actual objects for us. So imagine what happens with like memories of things. Memories of the time that you did really well at work times, you know, memories of the testimonials that you get from happy clothes clients, you're gonna forget all these incredible things that you've done. It's natural. You're more predisposed to it because you have adhd. So something that you can spend some time on one weekend. And if you have kids, this is actually a great thing to do with your kids and your teenagers is start brag books together. They can be scrapbooky, they can be online, but anytime you feel like you're being run by your inner weenie, that imposter syndrome, you go back to this brag book and you remind yourself you're actually better than good enough. You have a lot of evidence showing how capable and smart and talented you are. And lastly, this exercise sounds a little weird, but it actually works. So when, when you have your imposter syndrome running, it's usually that you're emotionally dysregulated. Okay, so emotional dysregulation means that you're feeling anxiety, you're feeling fear. There's a lot of stuff going on. It means that the logical part of your brain is offline. So a really, like, simple way to get your logical brain online or back online is to do things like sudoku or to download one of those sheets that our math teachers used to get give out when they were feeling lazy about doing homework or teaching a lesson. You know, the ones that like have a hundred different little simple math problems. And it's like, you know, four times 16 equals blank. You know, 16 divided by three equals what you know and go through and do all these simple math problems. You know, your brain, once it starts doing a logical task, will actually kick back into its logical thinking mode and it'll help you get out of that emotional dysregulation. And a perk of this one, especially if you have kids, is you're going to be up on your math. So when they need help with their homework, you're going to remember how to do stuff. If you're looking at that list of things that you need to do and learn and get to be able to be successful in your business, and you realize there's just a lot of stuff about starting the business that you don't know how to do, I've said it before and I'll say it again. I invite you to book a generate income strategy. Call with me where we will look at what you've done up until now, where you're getting stuck, and create a strategy for you to move forward in your business. Unless you're a sociopath. I don't want to talk to sociopaths. To book that call, you want to go to weenicast.com forward/strategy call and the link is in the show notes anyway, so that's yeah, thank you for letting me air my grievances. Are you an entrepreneur? Are you struggling to stay focused and organized while juggling a million tasks? Are you looking for ways to improve your productivity but finding it hard to stay motivated? Then you need to get access to my weeniecast for Winners show that's exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I know you might be thinking I've tried everything to stay on task and nothing works. But I'm enjoying the advice I'm getting here on the weeniecast, and let me tell you, I'm delighted to be able to help you and thousands of listeners just like you, my friend. But the Weeniecast for Winners podcast is next level and I'd hate for you to miss out on it. For just $1.99 a month, Winnie Cast for Winners delivers in depth and actionable advice that's specifically designed for entrepreneurs, including those with adhd, whether diagnosed or suspected. I'll talk you through how to increase your sales conversions, keep your mindfulness on point, and even offer practical tips that can help you be more productive and successful in your business, all while catering to your unique needs of being an entrepreneur who might be struggling with with adhd. With weeniecast for Winners, you'll get practical tips and strategies that you can use to drive your business forward without the frustrations and setbacks that often come with adhd. So if you're ready to start seeing real Results, subscribe to Winniecast for winners today at weenicast.com winners for just $1.99 a month, you'll gain access to the valuable insights and strategies that can take your business to the next level. Weeniecast for Winners is a show that's worth every penny for entrepreneurs who want to succeed. Subscribe now and start enjoying the benefits for yourself. Join the Weeniecast Hyper Focus community and unlock a whole world of support. Get direct access to me in exclusive calls, turbocharge your network with unlimited referrals, and boost your productivity with Sprint calls and accountability sessions. But that's not all. We're talking expert talks, masterclasses, and more. Register now to get in front of the line for this at the introductory price of just $77 per month, it's time to elevate your entrepreneurial game. Let's do this together. Go to weeniecast.com hyperfocus all one word. That's weeniecast.com hyperFocus.