Hello, and welcome to episode number 150 of The Shine Show. Today, we're going to talk about how to show up as the expert that you are and overcome your imposter syndrome, so stay tuned.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads, so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you are ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your own line business faster, then tuning, because you are ready to shine. And this is The Shine Show.

Hello, my dear friend. Hello, wherever you are in the world, I hope you are well today. And thank you for tuning in to listen to me, and to join me as I talk about a topic that I have not talked about in a very long time, and I'll tell you why. When I started my entrepreneurial journey, way back in 2014, I started by enrolling in a life coaching course. And, of course, one of the first things you start talking about when you create content as a life coach is imposter syndrome. For me, at least, I found procrastination and imposter syndrome were the two topics that showed up the most back in 2014, when I just started.

And can you believe it? Every time I talked about imposter syndrome back then, I felt like a fraud, because I felt like, I'm sharing this learnt content, but I'm not sharing lived experience, because I still feel like a fraud. Isn't that funny? That's a bit meta, talking about feeling like a fraud and feeling like a fraud.

But today, fast forward, how many years, 2014 to now, many years, I think I can share a bit about imposter syndrome, because I can say that I have looked it in the eyes, and I have confidently told imposter syndrome to sit down. And today, I can confidently share a few nuggets with you. Things that I have learnt along the way. Things that I learnt by exposing myself to people who make me feel like an imposter, on purpose. Things that I learnt by playing with the so-called, perceived big boys. Things I learned by getting in the backend of someone else's business, who makes seven times more money than I do. I'm going to share some of that with you today. And I trust that this is going to be valuable for you.

I want this to inspire you. I want this to motivate you. I want this to help you remember why you got started in the first place. And I want you to sit down and really process what we're going to talk about and ask yourself at the end of this episode, what is going to happen for you and your family, if you can continue down the track that you're on now, if this is a track you're on, to abide by the rules of imposter syndrome, or to allow your brain to continue to convince you that you're in some way, shape, or form, not living up to some imagined standard? Or not yet where you're to be, or behind compared to the other students you're hanging out with, what is your family missing out on? What are you missing out on? What is your bank account missing out on? And what joy are you missing out on, if you do indeed allow imposter syndrome to be in the front seat, in the driver's seat of your life and your business?

But first let's unpack a little bit of what is imposter syndrome? And if you really want to go geeky on this and academic, then you look towards psychologists, and they would explain it as a phenomenon in which people doubt their accomplishments, where they feel like frauds, despite evidence of success. And I want to add to that, also, imposter syndrome isn't just about feeling like a fraud, despite evidence of success, it's feeling like a fraud when there isn't evidence of success, external evidence of success yet, and then holding back on taking the actions that will produce evidence of success.

Because let face it, we're entrepreneurs and most of us are doing something new every day. Most of us are putting ourselves out outside of our comfort zone every single day. And we're exposing ourselves to the opinions of complete strangers on the internet. And I don't know if it's the same for you, but sometimes it's easier for me to brush off the opinion of stranger than it is to brush off my husband's opinion, my best friend's opinion, my mother's opinion, my imaginary opinion that the kids who went to school with me have, moms at school's husband's opinions. That was a big one for me.

When I just started, we were back in Perth and a lot of the moms, the school moms, didn't work. And at the time, I felt kind of fell into you the same bucket as them, because I was working from home, trying to get this business off the ground. So I was doing the heavy lifting with the kids and the school and all the things, and hanging out on social media, the rest of the time, making videos on social media, doing all the things, going live. And you know who paid the most attention to, it was the mom's husbands.

It was so bizarre. And I remembered at one point kind of catching myself wondering what their opinion is of what I'm doing. How messed up is that? Random dudes. But it was because they were paying attention, because they were curious about what I was doing. I think mostly, because they thought, maybe my wife can be doing this as well. But of course that just triggered a lot of judgment and a lot of imposter syndrome. Especially, because I couldn't show any money for what I was doing at that point. So, because I couldn't show any evidence of making money, when someone asked me what I'm doing, it was kind of like, "Oh, it's just this little hobby thing that I hope to turn into money one day."

And then deep inside, I would feel like, "No, this thing is going to make my family financially independent for generations to come. Why are the words that's coming out of my mouth coming out as if I'm like having a sandwich for afternoon tea, like it's not that unimportant. It's a big thing. And just because I don't have money to show for it yet doesn't mean it's not legitimate."

So when the psychologists talk about accomplishments, feeling doubt about your accomplishments, even if you have external evidence, I want to say to you that, I think imposter syndrome is even a bigger issue when you don't have external evidence. When all you have is a unwavering belief in yourself, and a deep, deep conviction that there are things inside your head and inside your heart that can be shared with other people that will make their lives better, that will help them solve a problem, that will help them overcome a roadblock, that will in some way, shape, or form add value to their lives, and they can pay you for it.

And I think that's the thing that we all... Sometimes I think that is the thing that binds us all together, online course creators. That is the heart of the online course creator. It's this unwavering belief in ourselves, and the gift we feel that was placed inside us, that we want to share with the world. That we know, if we share that with the world, when we share that with the world, and we use the internet to share that with hundreds of thousands of people, we can add value to many people's lives, and they in return will give us value for our lives and our children. And that value is money, in case you didn't know that.

Now the other interesting thing that I learnt about imposter syndrome is that this is especially common among high achieving individuals. And I want to share a little bit here, high achieving individuals, hands up if you're an overachiever. Yeah, I guess hanging out in my community, you probably are an overachiever, because you could probably smell the overachieving energy on me. And you were like, "Yeah, this is my girl. We're in overachieving country now." And I love overachiever and I attract overachiever really well.

The problem with overachieving is that, as overachiever, and I can say this... I want to say if you think you're not an overachiever, but you're trying to build business online, you're an overachiever. I never thought of myself as an overachiever, because I never realized that I had ADD, and when I started learning about it, I realized, oh, that's why my school achievements were so subpar, it's because I was bored out of my mind in school. I just wanted to do the things I loved, and those things I did really well at. You should have seen me in drama club. I was like, if glee was in my school, I was the lead singer. What's her name? Yeah. I was the one who was belting it out. Not that my singing is that great, but my acting, you should see me act. I was great.

Anyway, back to overachieving, if you are maybe hearing the word overachiever, and you think, well I'm not an overachiever, because most things I do are kind of like mine, but maybe like 70%. I'm like a B minus student or a C student. You're probably also an overachiever. If you're in this community and you're a creative person who wants to share your gift with the world. There's something we all have in common. There's some sensitivity. There is some desire to make a difference in the world. That comes from being an emotional person, a person who is able to teach and coach. And so even if that word doesn't connect with you, I think there is reasonable truth in the fact that imposter syndrome shows up more for people who are high achieving, because perfectionism is a double-sided coin.

Perfectionism on the one side of the coin, says everything has to be fact all the time. And I never thought of myself as a perfectionist, because I am the flip side of that coin. I am the I don't care, let's just get it out. And it's almost like a dissociation from my own perfectionism, because if I allow the perfectionism to be in the driver's seat, it will completely paralyze me. And so instead of allowing it to paralyze me, I just ignore it completely, which is also not good, which also then results as substandard work that I just want to dissociate from.

So I have an amazing team of people who reminds me all the time to pay more attention to the detail and slow down. And between the bunch of us, we have a healthy balance in terms of putting stuff out that is as close to perfect as we can get it, and being very, very kind to ourselves when we make mistakes or when we get it wrong.

One of the ways that imposter syndrome shows up for a lot of us is that feeling that we are being judged. And it's more than just the school mom's husbands, it's more than just your mom or your husband or your best friend or your kids or somebody else. There's a natural inborn thing in our brain that looks for comparison all day long. It's that little monkey mind, some people call it the reptilian brain. It's at the base of our brain. It is the part of our brains that have stayed undeveloped. That told us when it's time to flee, because there's a lion coming or there's a bear coming. And so that part of our brain is designed to make comparison all day long. It's a survival mechanism.

It's why when you drop the kids off at school, you compare your outfit to the other mom's outfits. It's why when you go to a live event, where there's other online course creators, you compare where you're at in your journey to where they're at. It's why when you sign up for an online course, you feel like you are behind, because your brain is only filtering in the evidence of the people who are making progress. Your brain is automatically showing you where there's contrast.

And so if you keep allowing that part of your brain to be in the driver's seat, then it is going to take over. And you are continuously going to be believing your brain, when your brain says, "Hey, you are behind. You're not good enough. You're not here yet. You're not doing it well enough. There's someone else doing it better. Someone's already doing that niche. Somebody already owns that area. Someone's doing that in a much bigger way. I'm not as good as that person."

And I just want you, I just, just want you to create awareness of how your brain constantly compares, constantly compares. And acknowledge that your brain's just doing its job. But a wise man once said, maybe it was a woman, I'm going to say it was a woman, wise woman once said, 'We are not our thoughts. We are the thinkers of our thoughts. We are not our thoughts. We are just the thinkers of our thoughts." And I have been really diving deep into meditation lately. I'm having so much fun. I love it. I really actually can say that my six, seven year journey with meditation is now at a point where I'm really enjoying it.

What I'm learning is that if we can teach our brains to present us with thoughts, and we can get a distance from that thoughts, so not just accepted as truth. Just kind of look at it and go, "Oh, hello, thought, you are interesting. I wonder why brain dished you up to me today? What's going on there? Okay. Well, let me just put you in a bucket, and I'll pay attention to you or maybe I won't even pay attention to you. I'll just acknowledge your presence. You've been acknowledged. Now go into your bucket, please."

That's helping me a lot in just creating awareness, so that I am not constantly on autopilot having my little monkey mind drive my whole life. Because as soon as a thought is presented to us, we can either believe that thought, which is then going to create an emotion, which is then going to create some kind of a reaction. Or we can just go, "Hello, thought. Yeah, you are interesting. I'm a little bit curious about you. Okay, go into your bucket, and we'll unpack that bucket later."

I hope that helps you. That really, really, really helped me. And it really, really made a big difference for me, understanding that my brain is designed to offer me up comparisons. Because this poor little brain, it's an old thing. It's an undeveloped thing. And contrast is the best way for my brain to make sense of the world. So next time you go into that online course where you're a part of and you feel behind; or next time when you compare yourself to someone else in your niche, who's already making millions of dollars; or next time you hold back on showing up for your audience, because you feel they're going to judge you, just take a moment, take a deep breath in, take a deep breath out, acknowledge that your brain is comparing, because that's its job, and then show up anyway.

And I want to come back to this idea of being born to help people, having a calling. I remember as a teenager learning the concept of a calling, and my brother, who was older than me, who was a little bit of a troubled teen. My mom bought him this book called The Meaning of Life. And I remember looking at that book going, "Ah, there's a meaning of life. Okay. My meaning of life is to make a difference in other people's worlds, in other people's lives.' I knew that from a very, very young age. I didn't exactly know how, what the form of that was going to be. But even to this day, that gets me out of bed every morning. And it is such a drive for me.

And I almost feel like that, too, is, it's evolution. It's just how humans are created. And for some people that shows up in power and for some people that shows up in impact, and we're all here because it shows up for us in impact. We all have skills and talents. And I believe that we also have something like a calling. Now that can look different for everybody. And you may not call it a calling. I think that's a very churchy word, but you could call it something else, your purpose, your something else.

But I think we can all agree that life is better when we know we can take what we've been given in life, the good and the not so good, and turn it into a way to help other people. Helping other people is really what makes me happy. I have shared before that my personal vision is to change the way that women work and earn money in the world. And I have never doubted my ability to help people, and I never will. I know I can help people. I'm proud of myself for living in that mindset, because I know that I make a difference in the world.

I just have to go into my testimonials folder to see the evidence of that. And because I teach my students to verbally express gratitude, often, I get a lot of gratitude, and I also say, "Thank you to them." So I think our students want to work with someone who cares about helping other people as much as they care about themselves. And if you're stopping yourself from sharing your knowledge and skills, simply because someone else does, you are holding yourself and others back by doing so.

And I want you to sit down, and maybe next time you're journaling or when you have some time, sit down and ask yourself, well, what got you started in the first place? Why did you do this in the first place? In last week's episode, we talked about your why. We talked about remembering the day you decided to start this journey, the feeling, the potential, the freedom you want to create.

Is your why written down somewhere where you can see it? Do you have it in front of you? Can you recall it? Think of the best feeling you've ever had working with a client or a student or someone you were helping, how would you coach your best friend, if your best friend was telling you she has imposter syndrome, and that's holding her back from showing up for her students?

And then last, but not least, I want to ask you what will happen if you don't start showing up for your audience? If you don't keep showing up for your audience, your business will stay exactly where it is. Your list will stay where it is. Your bank account will stay where it is. I want you to be making progress and evolving, whichever way is right for you. But I do want you to be taking action every single day to get closer and closer and closer to creating your life, your way.

In order to keep up with our skills, we need to keep using them, don't we? And the more we teach and the more we coach, the better teachers and coaches we become. The more we practice, the better players we are. I can see it with swimming. I swam this morning. I'm still in the slow line, but I've moved up from the super slow line. Our coach told me this morning. "I should join a master's swimming." And I was like, "No, thanks." The more we practice, the better we get.

If you withdraw and make yourself small, you are not going to experience the joy that performing your zone of genius offers you. You know that high that you get, it's almost like drugs, it's that happy, when you know without a doubt that you've helped someone? That will keep you going. Hold onto that high, anchor it somewhere, anchor it, have something every time you feel that high... I have a little, I don't know if you guys can hear this, let me... No, I don't think you can hear this.

I have a little pendulum, a little rose gold pendulum that I bought a while back, that every time something good happens, I just pick up my pendulum and I touch it. And I used to have a little rock on my table. I had a little, well, I call it a rock, but it was a crystal. I don't know where it is. I think my kids took it, and it said gratitude on it. And in the beginning of my business, every time something good happened, I touched my gratitude rock. So I want you to just anchor those good feelings.

Now, I want to end this with a quote by Ira Glass, and some of you may have heard this before. I remember it doing the rounds on YouTube a while ago, .but I want to end this, I'm going to read you this quote by Ira Glass.

And I want you to pay close attention. And I trust that this quote is going to help you really embrace every part of your journey, and learn to build a more productive relationship with the part of your brain that shows up as imposter syndrome. Okay, so here's a beautiful, Ira Glasses quote. "Nobody tells this of people who are beginners. I wish somebody told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste, but there's this gap. For the first couple of years, you make stuff. It's just not that good. It's trying to be good. It has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting creative work went through years of this.

We know our work doesn't have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or are still in this phase, you got to know it's normal. And the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work, put yourself on a deadline, so that every week you'll finish one story. It's only by going through a volume of work that you will close the gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I've ever met. It's going to take a while. It's normal to take a while. You've just got to fight your way through." And that is beautiful Ira Glass.

So now that you are remembering that you had it inside you all along, you've been reminded of the fact that you can trust yourself, and deeply connect back into your dream for your life, the impact you want to make in the world, the time and energy you want to balance between your family and your business. And you know that the only way to really make progress you want to make in 2022 is by just doing the thing, just showing up, getting in front of people, getting that list, building ad out there, starting to create a bigger and bigger audience of people you can show up for every single day, and then practice making offers to those people.

Practice inviting them to come in to your paid challenge, come in to your paid workshop, come in to buy your paid thing that's on your thank you page. Get your paid video/ making offers over and over and over again, until people say, "Oh, yeah, I want this. I want to hang out with you. You're great. You add value to me. I want to give you my money so that you can teach me this thing."

So I want to really challenge you, really, really challenge you to sit down and spend some time today thinking about how you can show up even bigger for your audience. How you can get started building a lucrative audience that is ready to buy from you.

And now that you know that, you also know that A-Lister, our foundational course that teaches new online course creators how to finally get in front of their hoards of people online, and make their first paying offer is closing soon. This is the last time that we will be making the offer for people to come into A-Lister at the price that it is at now. I am doubling that price, because I genuinely believe after having three different groups of people through this, that the value in that program is insane. I'm doubling the price next time.

So if you're still sitting on the fence, come and join me, go to shineandsucceed.com/yes, and join me inside A-Lister. I would love to hang out there with you, and to help you really build up your confidence in getting run of people and making them an offer. I hope you have a lovely week. I'll see you next week. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week. And remember to hit that subscribe button, so you never miss the thing.