Your Imposter Syndrome Is Your Superpower

Yep. It is that old chestnut. Imposter syndrome. But here's the thing, I don't want to talk about it in the usual way. You know, that narrative of how to cure imposter syndrome or let's Spanish it forever, or I'm gonna give you the three tricks to beat your inner critic. I don't wanna talk about any of that.

I actually wanna flip the script and say, what if imposter syndromeis actually a gift?

What if it is your superpower? What if instead of avoiding it, we actually embraced it and used it as rocket fuel to power ourselves up and to achieve that success that we want to achieve. So this is what I'm talking about today.

You don't belong here. You are not smart enough to do this. Someone's gonna find you out. They're gonna find out that you are a total fraud. We've all had it, haven't we? And you know what? You're not alone because that term imposter syndrome was first coined back by two psychologists in 19 78, and it was a term that described high achievers who feel like phonies that no matter how many achievements or how many accolades they've got, that they feel like a fraud.

But what if we could reframe it? What if imposter syndrome wasn't a sign of inadequacy, but actually a signal that you're actually growing, that you are stretching into the next level of brilliance. Because here's what I've learned over the years of building a corporate career for 20 odd years, and now for the last 14 years, building and selling businesses and constantly reinventing myself.

When it rears its lovely little head. What about using it as the green light, as the go button, as a nudge from the universe saying, this matters. Let's keep going. What if you could achieve that for yourself? Now, a few years ago on this very podcast, I had the joy of interviewing the incredible

She's the founder and CEO of a company called the The Marketing Academy. And on this podcast, I asked her, so Sherilyn, what scares you? And her answer, she turned to me and she went, Mildred scares me. And I went, who the hell is Mildred? And she went, Mildred. It's an orangutang, a orangutan. You see, what she had done is she'd given her inner critic a name and a whole personality.

Now we've all got a Mildred, don't we? Every single one of us, that voice that tells us to stay small, to play it safe, to be quiet. But what if we acknowledged it? What if we gave it a big fat hug and thanked it and then decided to move on? Anyway. Now it reminds me of a time a few years ago that I was in San Francisco and I was speaking at the same event as Simon Sinek.

He was there. Sitting on my shoulder whispering in my ear. Who do you think you are? No one knows you are here. You are just a little kid from Australia. What do you think you're doing being here in San Francisco? You're a small fish in a. Massive big American pond. Everyone's come here to see Simon, not you.

I get it. But you know what? I'm all good, and I went out there and I nailed that keynote because you see, once you realize those voices aren't facts, they're just fear wrapped up in a silly costume, you can actually choose to move on anyway.

So let's talk. Imposter syndrome and how we can use imposter syndrome as a superpower because as I've said, we've all got it.

It's the ability to say, I believe in myself, and I know I've got more to learn. Adam Grant talks about this beautifully in his book. Think Again. He defines confident humility as being grounded enough to doubt your tools whilst being bold enough to believe in your capacity to grow. It's about having.

Anyway, you are in your zone of transformation. It's exactly where I found myself early in my business. I remember distinctly waking up one morning, my heart was pounding with excitement, self-belief, and fear, because I was saying to myself, I'm gonna become a speaker. I'm going to write a book. And I knew I had this message.

I had that self-belief. I knew I had the stories, but the fear was I didn't have the skills. Yet. And so I did the work. I hired Matt Church to guide me through the speaking world, and I hired Kelly Irvin to help pull that book outta me and to craft it so I could release it into the world. And trust me, it wasn't easy.

Not because I never doubted myself, but because I believed enough to begin and I was humble enough. To get help. That's confident. Humility. And by the way, these are the people that I love working with in my Elevate and Inner Circle community, these people that have such incredible belief, it's one of the first things I ask when I talk to potential clients.

Now just stay with me for a second, 'cause this might sound a little bit academic, but I promise you it's, it's actually really juicy and most feedback systems you see focus on what's broken. On the gaps, on the weaknesses on that dreaded 360 review, that tells you you need to fix something. But what I love about appreciative inquiry is it's, it's different.

It was developed by a guy called David Cooperrider in the eighties, and it's an approach that actually focuses on what's working on your strengths, on your wins, on your unique spark. Because when you focus on what's strong, instead of listening to what you think is wrong and that fueling the imposter syndrome, you're able to create momentum from a place of power.

You know what I'm talking about? It's. It's that judgmental voice, the impatient tone, the overtalking when you're nervous. But what if those things could actually become your superpowers? Now, here's how I do it. Here's what I teach in, in my world. and I want you to do it. And if, if you can, grab a piece of paper now, and if not, just, bear with me, work with me on this as you're listening in.

So the first thing I want you to do is think about owning the negative. I want you to think about those things, those words where people have criticized you, or that you criticize yourself or think about, you know, I want you to be really honest with yourself. No filters. I want you to be judgmental, ipa, whatever it is.

So write down two to three negative things. It'll be the things that you remember that someone might have called you in the playground, a boss might have said to you. Is the stuff that you remember more than the good stuff that people have said about you. So for example, judgmental, impatient, domineering.

This is where we don't blend in or smooth off our edges. We actually embrace the edge. We channel it, we own it. Give it a go because the next time imposter syndrome kicks in and you feel tempted to shrink, to polish, to play small. I want you to pause and I want you to ask yourself, what is the strength behind this fear?

It's about harnessing the fire that imposter syndrome can bring because if we let it, that burning doubt can either scorch our potential. Or it can spark momentum. See, here's what I've learned about imposter syndrome. When I've reframed it, it's actually become my ultimate power up button. The truth is when you feel like an imposter, you've got nothing.

To lose. You've got absolutely nothing to prove, but you have got everything to gain. And in fact, by doing that with everything to gain and thinking this, I've got nothing to lose. Nothing to prove everything to gain. How liberating is that? How liberating because when we're not trying to protect a perfect image, we are free to experiment, to learn, to try new things that we've never ever done before.

But if you can channel it from a place of purpose rather than panic, it becomes a powerful drive to prepare better, to go deeper and to elevate your game the other way. Imposter syndrome powers us up is it powers up our work smarter button. Because when you feel like a beginner, you stop assuming and you start asking.

When you feel like an imposter, it means that you don't know everything, which means that you are ready to learn. And that hunger, I think that's where mastery starts. That's the playground of growth, and this is the secret ingredient of so many brilliant humans I work with. They use that feeling of not quite being ready to prepare.

Better. I literally today got off a call with somebody who is jumping up on stage to deliver a brand new keynote. She prepared, she'd rehearsed, she had her slides, but she knew that there was still a mastery needed to it, and we worked through it. How awesome is that, that feeling of not quite being ready to prepare?

I want you to run with it. I want you to use it to channel it. Let it sharpen your focus. It's the very thing that I have done over the 14 years of running my own business. Every single time I felt imposter syndrome kick in, I've channeled it. I've helped. I've used it to help sharpen my focus.

It helps me get my message out if you do that for me and I'll be forever grateful. Please also pass it on to any of your friends that you feel would benefit from hearing this message. Maybe you've got business friends, school friends, life friends that are constantly talking about imposter syndrome.

Send this to them and show them that. Imposter syndrome, their imposter syndrome can actually be their superpower. Until next week, please unlock who you are. Find something that you might be feeling like a bit of an imposter syndrome about. Give these tools a little bit of a go, and I'd love to hear from you.