Ep. 127 Overcome Imposter Syndrome with Maureen Zappala

Hey, Darren Lacroix. How are you today, buddy?

Man, I am psyched. This is a challenge. This is an issue for people who want to be unforgettable. But deep down inside, there's a little voice. Mine sounded a lot like my brother.

Well, I gotta tell you real quickly, a couple years ago I got a chance to be part of a Legends summit, A Legend summit, a two day video conference. Our buddy Michael Haig was there, but I saw other people on the virtual summit screen. I'm looking at Dennis Waitley, I'm looking at Les Brown, I'm looking at Brian Tracy, Patricia Fripp, Jim Cathcart and me. And I'm saying, who let me in the room, why I'm here? And I think I was dealing with imposter syndrome. But today we get to talk to an expert to help us analyze, understand it. And if we can handle it well, we can be unforgettable. Let's do this, Darren.

All right, ready for the go to expert in imposter syndrome.

Anyone can give a presentation. Few deliver unforgettable presentations. What's the difference? You're about to find out. Welcome to the Unforgettable Presentations podcasts with your hosts, world champion speakers and coaches, Mark Brown.

Mark Brown, your life tells a story and there's someone out there who needs to hear it.

And Darren Lacroix. And Darren Lacroix.

Stage time. Stage time. Stage time.

Ready for some powerful presentation. AHAs. Let's dive right in.

So, Mark, when I was at Bose Corporation and had my quote unquote day job, I had quotes in front of me that kept me going. One of them was the famous Vincent van Gogh quote, which, which says, if there's a voice inside your head that says you are not a painter, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. And I just think there's so many people. That's one of the reasons we gravitate towards speaking and self development, because we got issues. We got issues, Mark.

Well, I want to ask you one question though. Where did the Vincent Van go? Oh, man, I know, that was bad.

Hold on, I didn't realize I was going to have to get the sound effects ready. Gonna be one of those days, as Edward says. Yeah.

Well, on that bad note, I had the joy and privilege of bringing into our podcast today a dear friend of mine. I call her my sister. When she and my wife get together, they have three hour lunches. I just walk away. But my dear sister, Maureen Zapala, almost my twin, my age, we're both 25 she has become the go to expert on imposter syndrome. And I'm just so thrilled when we get to spend some time with her today. Maureen, how are you today?

I'm great, Mark. It's so great to be here, guys. Thanks for inviting me.

Hey, we're thrilled to have you, the go to expert. And most importantly, because people need it and they have it, they don't know what to do about it. And this is what you speak about. So why not have the go to expert help us help people?

Yep. Not only do people not know that they have it or they know that they don't even. I mean, they experience this weird self doubt and, and they think they're the only ones. And because they think they're the only ones, they're afraid to talk about it. And they don't realize that 75% of the population is thinking the same thing. So it's pervasive.

It's the island of misfit toys. We just. We gotta find the island. We gotta find the island. We're not alone.

Mark, you may wonder, what does that mean for us as speakers? Well, think about this. If you're starting out as a speaker, it's easy to look around and say, oh, they're doing well, they're doing well, what's my place? Or we say, well, I talk about this topic, but geez, Fred is a pro at this. Oh, Alice is amazing. Have you heard Enrique? Oh my gosh, who will want to hear from me? And if we're honest with ourselves at some point in our lives, we all kind of wonder, why would they listen to me? And I think that's dangerous because I believe all of us have value to bring. All of us have a place at the table. And we don't want anyone to get stuck in the starting gate before you even get out the gate. Because there's so much out there for you to give, so much out there for you to do, and there's so much for you to be so. Maureen, my first direct question is this. What do you tell anybody speaker who says, you know what, maybe I shouldn't do this because everybody else out there is so good or why should I even bother?

I would say it is a mindset issue. It is a thought process distortion. So you cannot cheer somebody into it. You can't motivate them into it. You can't say if you believe it, you can achieve it. You can't even say I believe in you so you can do it, because it all lives up here in their heads. We have to address the thought process and understanding first and foremost what imposter syndrome is and when it rears its ugly head. We talked briefly before we started recording. Mark, you mentioned that for you, it strikes when things are slow. And I thought. I never thought about that way because I look at it as it strikes most when things are changing. And sometimes when things go slow, that's a change. That's a massive change. So it rears its ugly head in times of change and transition. So if you are an emerging speaker and you're coming from a position of credibility, experience, a long history in a certain field or a certain position, and now you're changing, you're calling yourself a speaker and you're in the speaking world, yeah, you're going to feel like a misfit, you're going to feel like you don't fit. But there's strategies that I've developed that help you make that transition smoother, to alleviate that terror in the room.

Well, you know, I appreciate your saying you have these strategies. I wanted to address something else before you go into that that may be supportive. We talked about change and transition. And to clarify my position, when I say things are slow, what can happen is, well, clearly things are slow because I'm not good enough to keep this thing going. That's one mindset. Things, yeah, things slow down. It's not good enough. And also, I think it may have become more of an issue in the last couple of years during COVID and the pandemic, because we're shut in. We can't go out and do what we do. But what happens is we have built reputations. Many of us and others come to us and say, well, how do we do this? How do I build my clientele? How do I do all of these things? And you look at yourself going, I'm not doing that right now. And they're coming to me based on my reputation. Am I really, truly qualified to tell them? Or did I just luck out the last couple of years? And now the truth hits. So all these thoughts, and I'm being very vulnerable and honest here, all these thoughts go through my mind. People say, well, you know what? What are some good ways to reach people? You can go to LinkedIn, you can do Twitter, you can start doing TikTok, and I can talk about this, but I'm thinking to myself, I'm not anywhere near as successful as maybe Darren LaCroix is on TikTok. For argument's sake, I tell myself, why are they coming to me? I can tell Them what to do, but if I'm not doing it, I don't deserve to be saying it.

Yeah. You know, we tend to compare our insides with somebody else's outsides, and we've heard that before, and that's a danger, for sure. But here's something else that we often do. People with imposter syndrome, when it comes to defining success and failure, we tend to internalize failure and externalize success, Meaning if things are slow, if it's not going the way I want, if I didn't get that contract, if that client says no, then I must have failed. I must have done something to make it wrong. However, when you do get the contract or things do start to pick up, then you think, well, that's because I had help or I was in the right place at the right time. You externalize the success. We need to flip that script. We need to internalize the success. We need to own, rightly own the good things that we did. The activities, the character qualities, the systems, the content. We need to internalize that success and say, yeah, I did that. I own that. I've accomplished that. And then externalize the failure and say, it didn't work, because, for goodness sakes, we're in a global pandemic. You know, I can't own that. So you externalize the failure, internalize the success, and that really helps to flip that. Oh, my gosh, I'm not qualified. Poison thinking.

Brilliant. Do you think everyone has imposter syndrome to some degree?

No. In fact, research says 70% of the population does. And then of that extra 30%, half of them probably do. They just don't know it. There is a small segment of the population that really do think they are all that and more.

This is not the narcissist show.

So, yeah, it's a little bit of narcissism. It's a little bit of not understanding the measure of success and thinking that you're already there, even though success is up here and you're hit here, and you're like, I've arrived. No, you haven't. You got a little bit of work to do. I'm sure a lot of people, you know, here in the United States, if you remember that TV show American Idol way back when, American Idol, during the audition episodes where you'd get people that were just awful singing awful. Hurt. It hurt to hear them. And the judges would be kind of brutal and say, yeah, no, no. Move on to something else. And they would walk off all. You know, the contestants would walk off all like, they don't know what they're talking about. Those are people on the other end of the spectrum. And there's a. There's actually a name for that. It's called Dunning Kruger effect. People with imposter syndrome don't believe they are qualified. People with Dunning Kruger think they are way over qualified.

Who's Dunning Kruger?

Dunning Kruger.

Who was he or she?

Two scientists that kind of identified that little syndrome.

Got it.

Poor guys or gals? Yeah, man. I remember kind of unrelated, but I think for speakers, it might be a nice little message. On that note, as far as like American Idol, I remember Steven Tyler did an interview with Oprah Winfrey and he said, when I say somebody's not the American Idol, I'm not saying they'll never be the American Idol, just saying they're not the American Idol today and they just need to go back and do more work. But what is the work if we've got this issue, Maureen, what are some of the other strategies you can give us that would help us overcome this challenge?

I'll try not to give you my whole keynote.

Feel free. We got time.

I teach five strategies and the first strategy essentially is understanding what imposter syndrome is. It is, you know, that irrational self. It's an irrational self, created self doubt where smart people don't believe they are smart people and therefore they feel illegitimate, they feel unqualified, they feel like phonies, which is why been donned this imposter syndrome. You feel like an imposter and you walk through your career, your field of expertise or your new transition, your new life, job, your career, contract, whatever, you walk through that constantly looking over your shoulder thinking, do they realize I'm not really sure what I'm doing and today is the day I'm going to be found out. And it perpetuates this constant anxiety, uncertainty, drive to over excel, over deliver, overachieve. And I'm not saying it's not good to overachieve and over deliver. I mean, that's what we're in the business of being unforgettable. And we strive for excellence. Can't get perfection, but we can strive for excellence. But when that drive is more to satisfy this internal, like, I'm not good enough versus I want the client, I want my audience to benefit. If, if that's not in balance, you're never going to enjoy what you're doing, you're never going to enjoy it. So I teach people what exactly it is and where it comes from. The second strategy I teach, and this is really important, is to talk about it, verbalize it, acknowledge it, realize that because it is so pervasive that simply talking about it where you can make a connection with someone else who says, yeah, me too. It just so much diffuses the power that it has over you.

Nice, nice.

I want to just jump back. You said, first, identify it, know what it is. As you were talking, Maureen, my brain is going back to my childhood. And I realized I may need some help from some psychologists down the road. Because, you know, Darren recalls, is a photograph I have that I've shown on a very few occasions of my brother, my older brother Woody, and me way back in 1971, maybe I'm talking 50 years ago, and I was on my tippy toes trying to stretch myself up to his height, because I always look up to him. He was super smart. He was a year ahead in school. He'd take his exams a year early. He was amazing. And when I was probably 50 years old, my dad made a comment to us at a family gathering about how smart I was. I said, no, no, no, no. You forget, Woody was the one who was an elite group of kids. He's the guy who had his exams early. He passed all his grades. I had to repeat a year of high school. My dad said, no, no, no, no. You understand, you are smart. You just don't realize it. I'm like, are you kidding me? All the records show my brother. And to this day, I respect and I love my brother Woody. He's amazing and awesome guy. And when we're in a crisis, we turn to him. He's the guy. But my dad saw that there was something about me that was different, that I couldn't identify because I was trying to hold myself up against the image I had of my brother.

Yeah.

And I think some speakers find themselves in the same place. You know, you go to a program and you look, oh, my gosh, Darren Lacroix is on the program before me. And we jokingly say, well, how do I follow that? Or we say, well, thank you so much, Mr. Mc. You put me at the Maureen's Apollo. Thank you very much. And we joke about it, but deep down, we're not joking.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

How do we fix that?

At the core of imposter syndrome is this experience of shame. And a lot of that root of shame. I mean, I'm a very deeply spiritual person. So there's a spiritual aspect of it. But prior, I mean, even probably more practically deeper than that is it does come from our Childhood, our ethnic background, our financial background, the corporations that we've worked for, the jobs that we've had, the bosses, the coaches, the mentors, those people that speak both life and death into us and over us. And we absorb all that. And, yeah, we carry this baggage into every contact, every experience. And if that baggage is screaming, you're not good enough, you are. You remember, you tried that once before. You failed. Don't do that again. That's not your expertise. What are you doing here? We listen to those voices, and we. And we know these things. We hear these things all the time. But when it comes to imposter syndrome, we need to silence those voices. We need to realize that. Okay? And this is actually the third strategy I teach. It's about identifying your unique gifts. I call them gifts and gaps. The things that you do well and the spaces where maybe you could fill in a little bit of experience and forget about the gaps. Let's talk about the gifts. Every one of us brings something great to the table. We need to know what that something is. We need to own it. And it's not just skills. Skills can be learned. Character qualities, those are developed at a young age and can be changed. Character qualities are the real things that will take you over the hump of that transition. When imposter syndrome is screaming in the times of transition, and you think, oh, I don't have the skill to be a speaker. Well, guess what? We can teach you the skills. You have the character qualities. You have persistence, creativity, your team player. You're positive. You're hardworking. Those character qualities are worth so much, and we undervalue them. So when you walk into a room and you say, well, you know, I'm not quite like Darren LaCour. Well, yeah, there's a lot of things different about Darren versus me or you, Mark, but what else can I bring? Not that it's better than Darren, but it's different than Darren. Oh, yeah, look, I'm a rocket scientist. I work for NASA. That counts for something. Oh, look, I grew up in New York City and lost my parents at a young age. That counts for something. That develops some character qualities in me. Those are important things that we need to identify and embrace.

Wow.

I remember hearing Alan Weiss say something once, and he was sharing the stage with Nito Qubane. And a lot of us, maybe even some of us here, myself for sure, if we were sharing the stage with Alan or with Nito, we would think, oh, my gosh, how do I follow that? Like you said, Mark, but Alan's thing his mindset, he didn't even think twice about it. He's like, how lucky is the audience? They get both of us.

Yeah.

It's the same exact situation. It's not me versus them. It's not the Facebook post life, the Instagram post life. It's the truth and the reality. I just thought that was a fascinating perspective. And it's like, we gotta think like that more. We're different, so. And some people are gonna like Nito more, and some people are gonna like Alan more. That doesn't mean you bring yourself down. You.

Anyway, you get exactly. You know, one of the other things about imposter syndrome is that you can diminish it in two specific ways. I mean, many ways, but two that are very related. You learn something from somebody and you teach something to somebody, because we all can do both with people. So when I look at somebody who kind of scares me, intimidates me, I may feel less than I think to myself, okay, what can I learn from them and what can I teach them? What's my. What are my experiences, my perspectives that could add and build into them? That's a game changer when you think like that.

How do we do that?

So you say you learn from somebody, but also you can teach that same person.

Yeah. You can teach something to everybody. Yeah. Even if it's just, oh, yeah. I was over at this restaurant the other day. You really should try it. That's new knowledge that they didn't have. And. Wow, that's huge. It could be that simple.

That's interesting because, you know, over the last 20 years, I have taught Darren and I have learned so much from Darren.

Yeah.

And somehow we're still together. We still work together, we still hang out, and we're still brothers.

Yeah. I can say the same thing with Darren. Darren and I talk frequently, and I've gleaned so much from you, Darren. You're brilliant. Every time you open your mouth, it's like, oh, my gosh, do I need to write him a check? That was so significant. And sure. Yeah.

I'm not stopping you. I never have. I said, don't write me a check. Jk, jk.

But on the flip side, you ask me a lot of questions and you get my input and my. And I'm long. I mean, we're close friends. I'm long past the. My gosh. He's asked me. I realized completely, but not completely. You're right. Just a little starstruck.

I don't get it, but go ahead.

I'm not. But yeah, it goes both ways. You have to realize that you do have something to offer people, but you also can glean something. There's an opportunity to glean. And I don't mean extract, I mean, what can you show me? What can you teach me? I want to learn.

Nice. I love that. I'm even thinking, if we're trying to train ourselves, what if you wrote that on a note card and just every time you came across that, you pull out your note card. What can I glean from them? What can I teach them? What can I glean from them? And so if you have that insecurity, if we find something that we can catch ourselves and then we can actually do to help change that mindset and train our brain to think differently.

Yeah, I mean, when we're as speakers and I hear, I've heard this a lot from speakers, what could I possibly share that has not already been shared? This is where this fits in so well. Because we do have different experiences. People are not paying us just for the information. They're paying us for our unique perspective and our spin and experiences on it. But people are like, but still, I just don't think I have what it, you know, nothing of value to offer. I say, well, teach what you know. Because this is what happens when you teach something, you know, to somebody. They either already know it or they don't. Right. If they already know it, they think to themselves, I already knew that. I'm cool. And if they don't know it, they think to themselves, oh, I didn't know that. That's cool. Either way, you win, they win, you win, it's beautiful. Nobody's going to say, don't they think I already. Well, some people may say that, some people may say, I already knew that. That's stupid. Move along. Just put them aside and find the ones that are going to fall in love with the wonder of learning something or falling that they know something that you already know.

Sometimes we're professional reminders, but we remind people from our perspective. My championship speech, Ouch. Was not anything new. It was just a direct metaphor. Slash my personal experience on an age old. I didn't even know there was a book out about falling forward by. By what's his. John Maxwell at the time. But at the same time it did pretty good. Thanks to Mark and my coach.

Well, thank you, thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Now you mentioned identifying it, talking about it, identifying your gifts. Sometimes, like I said before, we think of our gifts in the context of what other people have but conversely, there are many of us, as you said with the Dunning Kruger effect, who feel super confident and no matter what happens, we're going to get this done. It's almost perceived to be a dangerous mental perspective, the Dunning Kruger effect. But is there any upside to that?

I think dunning Kruger started karaoke.

People who think, yeah, that was an experiment gone wrong.

But no, that's why I'm saying that, because I, you know, again, my brain's kind of warped here. Yeah, but doesn't that also give us license to take greater risk? And there are times that does become helpful. Or am I just overthinking this?

There's definitely an upside to the symptoms of imposter syndrome because it does drive you to do things well. That's a good quality. It does make you pause to get more information or to evaluate the scope of what you're doing. That's good. Prevents you from being overly reckless. It causes you to plan better. That's a good thing. So there's definitely upsides of imposter syndrome. The difference between having it out of balance and in balance, or the good side and the bad side is if it really holds you back from taking risks. And it could be a big risk, little risk, doesn't matter. If you are so committed to avoiding failure at any cost, that's a problem. We all know failure is the way forward. Failure is part of success. So we shouldn't fear failure, even though it's hard not to, because failure feels like a death. And then for people that are like that. I think back to a video I saw of a woman. She was a programmer in an IT department of some huge company. I don't remember what it was. She was giving this presentation at a conference. She was challenged with developing this software package. She was the lead project engineer for the software package and it terrified her. She's like, I just don't know if I could do this. I don't have a. I have what it takes. And I don't remember why she made this decision. Something happened or she had an influencer and she flipped the script and she said, you know what, I'm just going to go for it. I'm going to put my all into this project and see where it takes me. And she did. She led the team well and it was a year long project and about three weeks before the program was ready to launch into the customer hands, they discovered a flaw and she had to make a decision. Do I continue on and release it and fix it later or do I Pull back and fix it now. She chose to pull back and fix it now. And it appeared to be a massive failure because they missed the deadline, they lost money, they lost confidence, you know, contractor or the customer lost confidence in the contractor. People were mad. It was a tough situation. However, on the surface, it looked like a failure, but her bosses said, wow, that was gutsy. That was gutsy. And eventually they fixed it and it turned out well and she actually got a promotion. So we view failure as a death where sometimes we just need to dive in and see where it's going to take you.

Well, you know, I appreciate you saying that because in my experience in life, not just as a presenter, for those of us who struggle with imposter syndrome, most of us, failure can be like a death knell. It's when something goes wrong, you wonder, how do I get back up again? And all of us have fallen. And thankfully, in my case, I have had individuals who didn't always just say, attaboy. I've had those who say, get back on the horse. My friend Morgan McCarthy told me that. But there are others who can help me see, process what I went through and see where the mistake was. And I remember one time I bombed. I thought I bombed. And surprise, surprise, a year later, the client called me back to come back to the same audience and do a second presentation. And I couldn't understand why she would say, come back, because in my mind, I had done so poorly.

Yeah.

So at least to the question, does imposter syndrome distort reality in terms of our performance and how well we do and how can we fix that?

It's not that it distorts the reality of the performance, it distorts the reality of the goal. We don't understand what success and failure really is. We have kind of created our own definition of what failure and success is. So if we have this irrational or unachievable level of success and you don't reach comes back to what I was saying before you internalize it, you say, oh, I am a failure. Instead of thinking, well, I kind of set that goal way too high. It was irrational, unachievable, maybe a little too prideful. Who knows what it is? And a lot of times we learn how to set success and failure standards in our childhood. I grew up as. I'm a twin. I have a twin brother, Sean.

That's Sean, right?

Sean, yeah. Because I grew up in New York.

New York.

Yes.

I was a great student and it just. It came easy to me. I always got A's My brother was a good student. He wasn't the A student. He was like the BC student. And my parents thankfully kind of held us both to the, to the appropriate standard. However, me being that a student, I put the burden on myself. I could never get less than an A. Oh, wow. And when you live with that pressure, and not just in school, it's in life now. It's like I have to be perfect. I've kind of gotten better at it. I've let go of a lot. But when you set that standard of perfection and you don't hit it. Yeah. You're going to feel like a failure and a fraud and a fake and a phony and an imposter.

I know Dad's got a question. I have one more along the same line. I can't let this thing go because so many of us, the professional speakers, the industry jargon used to say motivational speakers. We talk about having the bhag, the big hairy, audacious goal. Dream big dreams, set big goals. But are they always reality? And when we don't hit that big goal, we can devastate ourselves. Is there a way for us to avoid that before we get to that place knowing we keep hearing dream big dreams, set big goals. You can do it. Dream big. We keep hearing it. I tell people to dream big.

Alongside of the big goal, though. You have to have the activity to match. And that's where the rubber meets the roll. Yeah, rubber meets the road. Sorry, I mixed my metaphor there. Yeah. Set a big goal for where you envision yourself. But what are you going to do to get there? What's your daily activity? And is that doable, reachable and schedulable? Measurable. If I want be a six figure keynote speaker and I'll put it on my dream board and I'll envision myself and I'll imagine it. But am I making the phone calls? Am I doing the research? Am I contacting the customers? Am I, is my marketing material up to snuff? Am I doing the activity? Those goals I can measure. Have I made my 10 calls today? Whatever that goal is, have I made my 10 calls today? Well, no, I haven't. Okay, well, let's get on it. Either you change the activity or change the goal.

Beautiful.

I think it was Tony Robbins that said a lot of us, we set our short term goals too high and our long term goals too small.

I love that.

And so we just expect way too much to happen too quickly and meanwhile we minimize the distance if we have that consistency. I know, Kathy Armillas has a great quote. She says, consistency beats ability. Consistency beats ability. And that's kind of what you're saying. You gotta have that goal. But then you've got to consistently do something every day. You can't just wish it. I think I love the secret, as a lot of you guys know, if you're listening, but at the same time, the one thing that was missing is you gotta do the work. You know, you get the inspired thought, but then you actually gotta do the work. It doesn't just magically show up. And Maureen, where did we leave off on the five?

Know what the symptoms are, Understand what your gifts and gaps are. I use an analogy. I call it your dot. This is your circle of expertise and your experience. And everybody has a dot. And you know, we can't have dot nv. We can't compare our dot with somebody else. Another strategy is one of my favorites, and I won't go through all five, but this one is a favorite. I call it reinforcing it. Reinforcing the value of your dot, your expertise. And the way we do that is to collect all of the great press that's been said about you, whether it's an award or certificate, a prize, a letter of commendation, promotion notices, newspaper articles, magazine, anything. Thank you notes I used to keep when I worked at NASA. I still have them. I can't believe I found them not long ago. My pay stubs. This was way back in the day of paper where you actually got a paper. Stubborn. I kept a stack of them because it was so. It was such a kick for me to think they still pay me. They still think I'm worth a paycheck. And that was huge for me. So collect all of the information about your expertise, your impact, your experience, and keep it in a pile. And not just collect it, but believe it. People did not give you a trophy because they thought you were cute. They didn't give you a prize because they were being nice. You did the work. You guys. You did the. I know you guys did the work to win the world championship. You know, I've been in the finals twice. It's a lot of work. I know you don't get the prize because you're. Because you told a funny joke. You did the work. So own that. Believe it. They're not promoting you because. Well, let me back up. Imposter syndrome is really big in the DEI world, which is diversity, equity and inclusion. Yeah, I'm not. I don't consider myself a DEI speaker, but the topic certainly is so I do address it a lot in my keynote. My credibility is that when I was at NASA and I was a project engineer in what's called the Propulsion Systems Lab, which is a jet engine test facility.

Rockets.

I'm a real rocket scientist. Yeah.

Yes. For real.

Yeah. They. I was promoted and I sought the position. So it wasn't like they just handed it to me. I was promoted into the manager of the test facility. I was the general manager. It's called the facility manager. And I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, did they just promote me because they needed a woman? You know, NASA at the time was very big into promoting women. And we had a disparity, disparity imbalance of men versus women. For goodness sakes, we're engineers. There's not a lot of women in engineers. I was definitely in the minority. And I thought, well, that's why they just put me in the position, because they needed a girl. And then I thought, I don't care why they put me in the position. I'm qualified. I loved the job. I did it well. I brought my own flavor to it. However, there was still this element of, am I going to measure up because I'm a woman? Yeah. So I can speak to the DEI component of it because I lived through it.

I appreciate that. And for speakers in particular, I know, Maureen, you mentioned the promotion letter and so on. But if you're independently or entrepreneur or your consultant, that could simply be a letter from a client or school or the kids say, thank you for coming to our school. It could be the testimonials you receive. You're getting them on paper. A testimonial video. I will watch my testimonial videos every once in a while. I'll be honest with you, there's one video I would cherish. In 2019, Darren Lacroix and I were blessed to do a 90 minute deep dive session at the National Speakers association national convention. And a gentleman came up to both of us to compliment us on the work we did. Somebody who came to me unsolicited, a legend in the business named Harvey McKay, said, Harvey McKay, why did it come to me? I said, can I get this on video? He said, sure. And he was willing to give me a video testimonial. So every once in a while, I'll pull that video up, say, Harvey McKay said that about me. You know, we do a podcast. Les Brown says, what Barry, what you and Mark are doing is doing such good work. I'll play that video and go, wow. Les Brown, a living legend Is telling us our work is worthwhile. I realize, let's be honest. We need to reinforce for ourselves the truth to counteract the lies we often believe and to get really honest with our listeners and viewers. We do a program every year called Game Changers. And a couple of years back, we were doing it live in Las Vegas. And we encourage our attendees to face the lies that they had been living with for their whole lives. And we have to do the same thing to encounter the lies we told them. We have to understand that we are, in our own way, each of us unforgettable. And sometimes I need to re. We need to rehearse and reinforce that truth. So thank you. Point number four is really meaningful. Reinforce the value that you have.

And the critical element, though, of reinforcing is not just being in awe that somebody said something nice about you, but to really believe it. That's important. It's not just like, wow, he really said that about me. It's more like, he said that about me. Yeah, I did bring it. I did impact him. I did share from my experience, There is validity in his appreciation that is so important. You can't just dismiss it.

And you can't. In your head, you can't say, he said that about me. It's got to be, he said that about me.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a difference in because what I.

Gave him was valuable. That's really important. And, Darren, you know, you and I talk a lot. You frequently give me a compliment, and I still struggle with accepting it. And you're like, maureen, just receive it. And I have to like, yeah, thank you, Darren, for saying that. Wow.

Any other techniques that you have that we. Something we can. So I love the idea of create that file, whether it's on your computer or physically in a file, and maybe pull it out once a week or once a month or something. That works for you. But seriously, go back, find out some of those testimonials. Mark, I told you. I got unsolicited Christmas cards from some of our students. Unsolicited. And Masako sent me one that said.

I got one too.

Here, I have a book now because of what you know, she did the work, but we somehow helped her with her self doubt. Marian sent me a card that said, you know, Mark, you and I help her to want to be better.

Like, that's huge.

I keep those. Like, that's not going away because I have days where, uh.

Oh, let me tell. Can I tell a quick story? This is an old story, Darren, again, this goes back to you And I, probably 10 years ago, and I was contemplating creating a product. I was giving a keynote at a Toastmaster conference and it was probably three months away. And I think you said, what are you going to use as your back of the room sales? I'm like, I don't know. He's like, you need to make a cd. I'm like, I can't do that. I can't do that. Long story short, you kind of smacked me around and said, yes, you can.

Do that, you're welcome.

And I thought it was going to be a long and involved process. And you said you could get it done this weekend. Really, I could. Well, it didn't take me a weekend, it took me a week, but I did it. And when I created, I didn't just create one cd. I created, I think a package of four overachievers. Well, you know, I can't say my name in under a minute and a half. So there you go. It says over talk. And when I went to this conference as the keynoter and offered this as a resource at the end and sold a ton of them, it was my very first time selling product as part of a keynote. And I called you from the conference, it was in Columbus, and I said, oh my gosh, this is how much I sold. And you were floored. And all I could remember thinking was, I can't believe he actually encouraged me to do it. And I did it. So it's just we underestimate our own skills and abilities and qualities. And sometimes we do need people to speak that into our lives and accept it.

But you accepted it. You accepted it. There's a difference. So a lot of people can speak into us, but we have to work up the courage to accept the challenge.

And that's exactly my point is to really believe what people are saying. Yeah. Because they're not just saying it to just be nice. Maybe they are, but there's an element of truth. Find the element of truth. Okay, so then the last strategy is very. A lot of people would think it's a little woo woo, like kind of weird. It's a spirit. I referenced it before. It's a spiritual issue. It is a spiritual condition. Shame is at the core of it. And shame is an experience of unworthiness at your core. It's not related to I did bad, but it's related to I am bad. Big difference, big effect. So we need to address the what am I? Why do I believe I am bad? And what can fix that? I'm a fan of Brene. Brown, there are things about her content that I disagree with. And this, actually, I don't know if I disagree with it, but we differ a little bit on it. She says to overcome shame is you just talk about it. You be vulnerable, you express to people that you're feeling a little, and that's good. There's value in that. But that's not how to solve the issue of shame. It is a spiritual condition and it needs a spiritual solution. So I encourage people to go on a spiritual journey, wherever that journey takes you. For me, I'm a Christian. That's where the journey took me. It solved a lot of that hurt. So, yeah, dig deep. Think. What's your why in life? What is it that rocks you out of bed? How do you define yourself? How do you find value in your world? What do you value? All those spiritual, ethereal, existential type questions. They're important.

Maureen, just for clarification, in case people are wondering, what did you mean by you now understand you're not putting it on anyone, but you are Christian. You went on the spiritual Christian journey. What does that mean? Did you pray? Did you seek guidance from other Christian leaders? What does that mean?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. All that. And everybody's spiritual journey is different. You know, I grew up in the Catholic Church, went to university in Notre Dame. Can't get much more Catholic than that, but just left the Catholic Church for, you know, not bad reasons. It was just not my personal journey, personally. Just met Jesus. It was very spiritual. It was a long journey. It wasn't like on the Bible. Paul was knocked off a horse and struck blind. Mine wasn't like that, but it was definitely a slow, bubbling, fermenting kind of process where I came to love Jesus.

Want to clarify again what Darren said? The intent is not to have anyone do what Maureen does. Whatever that means for you, if it's going to build you and get you to the place you need to be, then by all means, take that journey. That's what we're saying. Wow.

Wow. All right, so, Mark, as you sum up the keepers here, Maureen, if you were sitting down over coffee with somebody who came to you, I'm a speaker. I have imposter syndrome. I didn't realize I did. What advice would you give me?

Three specific things. First of all, you're not alone. We kind of all feel it. And a subset of that is because you're not alone. It's kind of a normal experience. So don't think that you are abnormal. Second thing is learn a little bit about the symptoms so that you can recognize the symptoms when you recognize a symptom of imposter syndrome. And I didn't even list them. There's six of them. Didn't even list them. When you recognize the symptom, you can immediately overcome it. You can't battle an enemy unless you recognize the enemy. So know what the symptoms are. And then the third symptom is, is to really. I didn't talk much about your dot. Know your dot, know what it is that you rock the world with and your experience, your expertise. Embrace it, love it, be proud of it, and recognize your dot is different from other people's dot and your dot is just as valuable.

And keep growing your dot, dot ology, dot ology. As Mark puts together the keepers from this time with you. Thanks for joining us. Seriously, really appreciate it. And I think a lot of people don't realize that they're not alone. So if you're listening to this, you. You're not alone, including the three of us. We've just dealt with it, overcome some of it, continue to work on it. But Maureen, if somebody wants to know more about you, find you, follow you. How would people find Maureen's Apollo?

Well, my website is first Name, last initial. Maureenz.com Pretty simple. You can find information about my keynotes, my. I also do presentation, skill training and coaching and how to contact me. My other resources. I've got a video program that helps you overcome imposter syndrome. I've written a book about imposter syndrome. Pushing your envelope.

Where can they find that? Is that on Amazon? Is that on your website?

It is on Amazon, yep. Phone number, email, on social media, on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. So I'm pretty accessible.

And she was smart, too. She said maureen Z. Because not everyone can spell Zapala properly.

I still can't spell it properly.

Her name was Burns. It was.

Burns was easier. Mark Brown. I'm gonna miss that one. Well, couple of keepers here from wisdom that we have gotten from. From Maury when it comes to imposter syndrome. First, address the thought process and remember that imposter syndrome strikes most in times of change and transition. Don't internalize failure and externalize success. Own your success. Internalize that and externalize your failures. Beware the Dunning Krueger effect. You may not be as good as you think. Skills are learned, but character qualities can be developed. Know what you're good at. Know your dot and never underestimate its value or worth. You can learn from someone and you can teach Someone you can learn and you can teach. Do both to build yourself, set big goals, but do the activities to meet those goals. Keep a file of compliments and good words, believe what they say, refer to it often and go on your spiritual journey to conquer your Imposter syndrome. Any more from you, Darren?

Yeah, I love what she said right up front. What is imposter syndrome? A thought process distortion. Thought process distortion. So it's distorted, it's not right. The problem is we believe it's right. So then we try and figure out why. What's wrong with us as opposed to, okay, let me un distort this distortion. And I like the idea. I know you didn't necessarily say it, but just have write down your note card. If you come across someone and you start having these feelings, okay, what can I learn from them? What can I teach them? What can I glean from them? What can I teach them? If you're listening to this, thank you for being a listener, mark. We're approaching 100,000 downloads, which is super cool.

Wow.

Yeah. And if you want to join us for an event, Pod 25, go to stagetimeworkshops.com stagetimeworkshops.com and you can also go to. If you got a question for us, please. We're going to start taking questions. Go to unforgettablepresentationspodcast.com scroll down, ask us a question and we might just feature you on an upcoming episode. Maureen Zappala, thank you for bringing your lipstick, your smile and most importantly, your wisdom. Mark Brown, take us home.

Friends, this is a great chance for us to learn one more thing that we can do to become not only good, not only great, but if we conquer imposter syndrome, we can all be unforgettable. We'll see you next week.

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