Neuroscience of Coaching – Episode 16
Reframing Imposter Syndrome (Melanie Benson)
Melanie Benson: I see where people lock in this paradigm of, I’m an imposter. And it starts with some experience, some trauma, some event, some situation where something happened and they got negative feedback, could have been as a child, could have been as an adult, and that they begin to then collect evidence, yes, I am an imposter. Look at all these things happening around me.
Dr. Irena O’Brien: Hi, I’m Dr. Irena O’Brien, and you’re listening to Neuroscience of Coaching. I’m a cognitive neuroscientist with almost 30 years of study and practice in psychology and neuroscience. And as the founder of the Neuroscience School, I teach coaches and other wellness professionals practical, evidence-based strategies to use in their own practices. In each episode, I invite seasoned coach to discuss a topic that clients struggle with, and together we provide you with science-based tools to help your clients reach their goals by working with their brains to create results that last.
In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about a very popular topic in self-help, coaching and pop psychology – imposter syndrome. Although the term has been around for half a century, it’s taken on significant interest and attention in recent years. There is no shortage of YouTube videos, blog posts, social media, TED talks, and articles about imposter syndrome and how to overcome it. An important distinction that can get overlooked is that imposter syndrome is not simply the feeling of anxiety or insecurity about being new and incompetent at something. Instead, it describes an anxiety or fear despite the person having demonstrated competence or even expertise.
What’s especially challenging is that people who experience imposter syndrome often try to accomplish or educate themselves out of it. They think, if I’m just smart or good enough, I’ll no longer feel this way. But the opposite can happen. High achievers with imposter syndrome often feel an increase in anxiety and fear as they achieve more. And this is because the phenomenon is largely rooted in a combination of low self-esteem and perfectionism, not objective measures of competence, accomplishment, and ability.
Neuroscience comes into this topic because of the predictive brain, which I’ve talked about many times in previous episodes. We’ll get more into the predictive brain today, but if you’re new to the show, check out episode three with Lion Goodman. It’s all about the topic. Our brains are wired to prioritize sensing and predicting danger, which was obviously critical for humans to evolve back when daily life was often dangerous. But in the modern world, the predictive brain opens the door to imposter syndrome. A person who experiences imposter syndrome is living a predicted danger that they will be discovered for not being as competent and capable as people think.
But again, this is not rooted in reality. It’s entirely based on the brain predicting this danger due to life experiences, usually in childhood. But were there science, there’s usually good news. And the good news here is that the predictive brain that fosters imposter syndrome can also help us minimize or move past it. So today, we’re going to help coaches and clients alike learn ways to redirect our predictive brain for positive outcomes. We’ll uncover the neuroscience that makes it possible. And I’m honored to talk about this with my wonderful guest, Melanie Benson.
Melanie Benson refers to herself as an authority amplifier. Her superpower is helping entrepreneurs identify and activate their own unique positioning to become the highly paid authority that their ideal client knows, likes, and trusts. She’s the host of the podcast Amplify Your Success, which is in the top 1.5% of all podcasts worldwide. She’s the author and co-author of multiple books and has been featured in major magazines such as Bloomberg Business Week, Women’s Day, and Parenting. Thank you so much, Melanie, for joining me today. It’s so great to have you here.
Melanie: Thanks, Irena. Thank you. This is one of the conversations that I think just really is so needed by our industry right now. So thank you for inviting me.
Dr. Irena: My pleasure. So, before we dive into imposter syndrome, why don’t you tell us a bit more about your background and what being an authority amplifier means.
Melanie: Thank you. So let’s just start in 1999, I was experiencing an enormous amount of dissatisfaction and disillusionment about my career. And I had no idea how I was going to take the superpowers that were kind of like naturally coming through for me and place them in the corporate environment I was in at the time. And one day, I was walking through a bookstore and this book literally fell off the bookshelf right in front of me. And it was written by, at the time, one of the most famous life coaches. It was called Take Time for Your Life.
And I don’t know about you, Irena, and about you as the listener, but I literally had no life. I had no time for anything that was valuable and important. And so in 2000, I studied coaching, started a coaching business, left the corporation, and so for 24 years today, as we’re airing this episode, I’ve been showing entrepreneurs how to step into their full superpowers and really monetize that. I call it being an authority amplifier because I realized about a decade ago that we have a pretty crowded market for people who their expertise is helping other people achieve goals or move through something that feels like a stuck point.
If you call yourself a coach, there’s a lot of people that call themselves a coach. And I recognize that if you want to be somebody who can impact more lives, you can exponentially grow your income, you got to stand out. And people choose people they know, like and trust. And if they experience you being an authority in your work, that gives you a bit of a visibility advantage that many of us need to stand out in our marketing online. So that’s where the authority amplifier comes in. And it’s a little bit about my background. Where I am today is helping people reach the lives of millions with their message by learning how to really stand out in their marketplace with a compelling message and what I call heck yes offers.
Dr. Irena: Yes.You don’t want to be the best kept secret, right? So what are the first things that came to mind as you listened to what I said in the opening about imposter syndrome?
Melanie: Well, I love that you tie it back to the predictive brain. That term is so powerful. And I recognize that many of us where we formed this collective term that we all understand imposter syndrome, we all are starting to become aware, oh, there is a version of me that either doesn’t feel ready or is worried about what might happen. I don’t know that I, as a authority or as somebody with an expertise can stand up and say, I am the definitive authority in this body of work. And in my experience, Irena, I’m finding that people who they are feeling like an invisible expert, they’re the best kept secret in their industry. What’s happening is there’s a part of them that has doubt or maybe shame or some kind of fear about what might happen when they’re experienced by more people.
And so this idea of imposter syndrome, this term imposter syndrome, seems to be a collect all or a catch all of, yeah, I’m not getting out in a bigger way because I feel like I don’t want to be seen as an imposter, or I’m worried, like, can I do this? Am I ready? And that ends up putting us into this perpetual pause. That’s what I’m seeing as it relates to what you described as the predictive brain says, I don’t want this bad thing to happen. So I am going to pause and wait till it’s safe for me to go out and be seen in a greater way or put my work out in a greater way.
Dr. Irena: But the thing is, it’ll never be safe
Melanie: Right.
Dr. Irena: Right? If you don’t start to change your predictive brain.
Melanie: Exactly.
Dr. Irena: Yeah.
Melanie: And I’m wondering, because you have so much beautiful work around this from the neuroscience of things, do you as well see that people have this happening maybe on a very subconscious level, and it may not be their conscious brain that is aware that they’re feeling like an imposter. They’re just busy doing all these other things and they never, quote unquote, get to the actions and behaviors that would lead them to more success.
Dr. Irena: I tend not to work directly with clients, so I pretty much just do teaching now. So I don’t see that on a day-to-day basis. But, yeah, but I do have personal experience with it, actually, in people in my circle. Right? I went to get a PhD because I wanted to finally feel good enough. I know women who’ve become medical doctors and thought that finally they would feel good enough. And, you know, a PhD or an MD doesn’t change how you feel about yourself.
Melanie: Yep. Or training doesn’t equal more confidence.
Dr. Irena: No, not at all. So, as I mentioned in my opening, you can’t out accomplish imposter syndrome, so to speak. So what experience or knowledge do you have in helping high achievers navigate or eliminate this problem?
Melanie: Well, I use a version of neuro linguistic programming. It’s something I was trained in about 22 years ago, and I don’t think I recognized how important that tool set was going to be. I kind of took it for me like I wanted to get unstuck. I wanted to be able to remove some blocks that were in my way at the time. And I didn’t realize what a powerful tool it was going to be in my toolbox to work with clients who were feeling stuck or stuck in imposter syndrome. And what I find is working really well for my clients is recognizing what is the version of your narrative or your story that keeps you believing you’re an imposter.
And I start working on what I call the mind level at first, because sometimes it’s in the mindset, sometimes it’s stuck in the body. But there is a set of steps that I see where people lock in this paradigm of, I’m an imposter. And it starts with some experience, some trauma, some event, some situation where something happened and they got negative feedback. Could have been as a child, could it have been as an adult? And that they begin to then collect evidence. Yes, I am an imposter. Look at all these things happening around me. And that’s in my experience, because your predictive brain is out there collecting evidence, saying, this is a belief I have. I am now going to reinforce that belief with these experiences.
Sometimes it’s self-sabotaging. Sometimes it’s you’re just in a repeating pattern that you don’t have awareness that that pattern is bringing you to these outcomes. When it comes to imposter syndrome, we have to start by creating a new possibility. You have to create a story of what’s possible that’s more in alignment with what you do want. So let’s take imposter syndrome and say somebody feels like an imposter because they’re putting a coaching program out there, but they’ve actually never gotten any results outside of the results they got for themselves.
This is a really common reason why I see coaches in particular feeling like an imposter. We could use this scenario on leaders or anything that somebody listening to this might relate to, but we’ll start with being a coach or a mentor of some kind. And what I see is that I have the belief I’m not good enough at this yet. How could I possibly charge any money? How could I possibly help somebody else? I don’t have a track record. I don’t know enough yet.
And what I like to do is kind of dissolve the negative influence of that story and say, okay, what is possible right now with the training that you have and the experience that you bring to the table? What is one positive thing that could happen that could lead you to that desired outcome? So instead of staying stuck in the I’m an imposter. I can’t do anything. It’s like, let’s take small movement forward, and what’s possible is there’s somebody out there that I know more than they know.
Maybe it’s just like two things. I know more, but what I do know can be of value to where they’re at in their life. And those are my clients that I’m going to work with right now. So instead of being stuck in I’m an imposter, it’s like, well, who would you not be an imposter to? Who can you help right now that can bring value to their lives and you can start to grow the work you’re doing in the world.
Dr. Irena: And what does self-esteem have to do with it? Do you work also with self-esteem? Because sometimes, I mean, people are good enough, right? They do have the training and the ability, but they still feel that way.
Melanie: Yeah. Yeah. You bring up the self-esteem part of a client that I’ve been working with for a couple years, and I think he would say that that’s his core issue. You know, he had a lot of negative reflections back to him as a child, and now his self-esteem is diminished. And so when he feels like an imposter, it’s the child version of him that is speaking in his mind. His story of, like, I’m not good enough. I’m never going to be good at this. And look at what my client said, or look at how this situation’s revealing that to me.
And so the self-esteem part is, well, what do you feel good at? How could you do more of those things? And so I, again, working on the mind level, what is the story where you do feel good? So we’ve worked on spending more time. And, like, when he feels those self-esteem pieces, is it true, or is it your child mind and your child experiences that are reflecting that back as you’re not good enough? And to reinforce good enough, what are you good at? What do you do really well?
And so I’m constantly building the kind of, like, the neuron connections between where he is good enough. He makes millions of dollars for his clients, millions. So when he travels back in time and goes, I’m not good enough, see, this happened. I’m like, yes, but that’s the story that your brain makes up based on your lack of self-esteem, not the truth, the way other people see it. And sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes it has to be repeated over and over and over again because we’ve spent a lifetime building a neuron path that this happened and I’m not good enough.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, it doesn’t happen overnight, because, as you said, it’s taken your entire lifetime, right, to get to this point of low self-esteem. And the thing is that our predictive brain, or our brain wants to keep us safe. And if we have lived this long and we’re still alive, your brain thinks, oh, I’ve kept you safe, so I’ll just keep doing more of the same thing until you start to try and change that pattern as you’re doing with your clients. Right? You’re getting them to see something different. It’s constant.
Melanie: Yes. People think, I’m going to have this immediate breakthrough, and it’s all going to be better, but what I think it is is an immediate awareness. And then we have a new tool in our toolbox to reinforce the version of us we want to become or we are connecting to as possible. And when stuff comes up, it triggers that old feeling state or those old beliefs. We have to pull that tool out of the toolbox and work the process.
Dr. Irena: I know, and it’s a constant struggle.
Melanie: Yes, it can be, for sure. I definitely relate to that.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. Like even today when someone calls me doctor, like I step back, I’m taken aback, and I almost feel uncomfortable when someone calls me doctor. And yet I’ve earned my PhD fair and square.
Melanie: Yeah, that’s interesting. And I think there would be a lot of people that would relate to that in the sense of whatever authority you know, your clients most will respond to or whatever expertise you invested in to become a more confident or trained version of you. I believe if we are doing that to compensate for where we don’t feel good enough, it doesn’t matter how much we invest in, we’re still not going to feel enough, as you were saying earlier. So you have to figure out what is the evidence I need as a human being, where good enough starts to feel right where I can accept, I am good at this.
So my evidence has always been channeled through my clients get results. And guess what, Irena? And I know you’re going to know what I’m going to say. When my clients weren’t getting results, what would happen? My self-esteem would go into the flipping tank. I was, like, destroyed. But what I know now is that a part of me who was basing my identity and my worth to results that my clients would get needed to have that experience, to awaken a more healthy, more grounded, more confident version of myself. It has nothing to do with whether or not they get results. That’s the end of the story.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, exactly. And their results are not solely dependent on you either.
Melanie: Exactly. There’s so many conditions. But that was the wounded version of me, right? That was the hook in trauma unresolved from childhood rather than the standard of what measure I can value myself. Like it was a beautiful opportunity to take the learning. Oh, yes. My value does not depend on them doing anything. My value is intrinsic. Now, do I really need to make sure that I’m doing everything I can in my power as their coach to give them the tools to get results? Yes, but their outcomes do not define my value or my worth.
Dr. Irena: So imposter syndrome is really a combination of low self-esteem and perfectionism. How do you help your clients get over perfectionism? Because, you know, perfectionism is a moving target. You’re never going to get there.
Melanie: I love this question, Irena. Such a great question. Well, as a recovering perfectionist, I can honestly say that what has been my greatest teacher is nature. If we are aware of nature around us, there is zero perfection that exists. Nothing that nature creates organically has perfection in it. And if you follow the Enneagram tools, I am an Enneagram one in the tools, which basically means that I want to get things right. And so what does that do? That embeds a sense of perfectionism.
When I find my clients have perfectionism, it’s like, I got to get this right, or if I don’t do this exactly right, what that tells me is the mechanism of, like, if it’s not perfect, I’m not going to be okay. That’s a fear. So one of the things we work on is, okay, we need to redefine what success means. What is the successful outcome? This is perfect. Probably not. Long time ago, I created an episode for my podcast in season one called the 80% Plan. We’re going to get 80% of it figured out, and 20% of it gets figured out on the way. Well, it’s the same thing with perfectionism. What if you got an 80% right and there was 20% that was going to be judged by anybody? You, the world around you, your parents. Right? Like, we can’t control what they reflect back to us. That’s them.
I once had a client, Irena, which I think you will appreciate. He didn’t want to set goals, and I was really curious about that. And I said, well, what is the resistance to setting a goal? And, like, having a specific goal that you’re aiming for? And he said, if I don’t reach that goal, I’m going to hate myself. And I said, what if the goal was to aim your focus towards an outcome, and then you actually appreciate wherever you get to, because you’ve learned something and you’re not where you are now. The goal is meant to actually be a catalyst, not a measure of your value and your worth of whether or not you achieve that specific goal?
And it was like, boom. His whole mind shifted. It was like he had always been measured on whether or not he hit the specific goal. So I think that’s where a lot of people get stuck, in my experience is if I don’t get it exactly right, it’s going to mean something bad about me.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, exactly. And sometimes we make our goals too big.
Melanie: Right. Too lofty.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. Too lofty.
Melanie: Yeah. What is that saying that you shoot for the moon, and even if you land on the stars, you’re farther along than you ever would have been if you didn’t shoot for the moon in the first place. And I know if we’re perfectionist, we’re like, yes, but I got to get to the moon. Well, no, actually, we don’t. And recognizing there might be some milestones that are valuable to achieve along the way. So when I’m working with people on goals. Yes, this is the big thing you’re shooting for.
And what are some milestones that have meaning and value for you to achieve as you move towards that goal? So chunking down into some smaller, really meaningful steps that somebody needs to integrate or embody or achieve as they get there so that they can experience wins as part of the growth.
Dr. Irena: Exactly. That’s what I teach my students all the time. The power of the small achievable steps. Because then you win.
Melanie: Yes. And you feel like you’re winning every day, rather than, oh, my gosh, I’m behind and I’m not where I’m supposed to be, which is a very draining and low vibrational state to be in. And it activates that self-judgment and the lack of self-worth.
Dr. Irena: Exactly. Yeah. So I have my own story with perfectionism. When I first started my certificate program in applied neuroscience, and I had my first cohort of students, and when I first started, the Q and A calls, you know, students who don’t have a background in neuroscience or not even science ask questions that often are just unanswerable. And also, they can ask questions like, neuroscience is such a vast area that I can’t possibly know everything, and I’m a certain kind of neuroscientist, cognitive neuroscientist. And so at the beginning, it was really hard for me to say, I don’t know. And now, after several years in, I find that it’s easier to say, I don’t know. My self-esteem doesn’t fall through the floor when I say I don’t know. I still don’t like it. But, you know, it’s just the way it is.
Melanie: I love that. How empowering to, you know, I don’t actually know the answer to that. And there’s also, like, a second piece of that that could maybe come with it, and that is. But let’s figure it out together, or here’s how we can find an answer. Or what would you like to do to own finding an answer to that? Right.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, exactly.
Melanie: I think one of the other things that happens for people is they, like you said, set these really big goals. They see other people accomplishing huge things in their businesses or huge things in their lives. They see people getting these bodies of work out, and they’re like, well, why am I not doing this? And they’re not prioritizing. So I have found some signs that people are getting stuck in imposter syndrome. And I would be very curious, Irena, if you recognize any of these from your own circle or even from the science of what you know, I think if you are perpetually busy doing things that are not what you say your goal is, and you cannot find a logical reason why you’re not focused on your goal, you could potentially have some imposter syndrome going on.
If you feel like a constant resistance. It’s like I say, I want this. There is a part of me that really wants to make more money, or I want to have a greater impact on the world, or I want to write a book or anything that is bigger and bolder than anything you’ve done up to now, and you’re in resistance. It would be worth looking at, like, well, why am I resisting this? And is it possible that there’s a version of me that’s, like, I feel like an imposter? Like, why me? Why should I do this?
Dr. Irena: Yeah, that is interesting. I hadn’t thought of that. And now. Yeah. And that makes me think of, like, procrastination also.
Melanie: Absolutely. Procrastination.
Dr. Irena: Yeah. It could be evidence of imposter syndrome.
Melanie: You also have, when you are constantly in scarcity mode. Now, there’s a lot of reasons why scarcity mode occurs, but something to explore if you’re constantly like, I never have enough. I never have enough time. I never have enough energy. I never have enough clients. I never have enough money. Right You have to look at like, well, what’s underneath that? Because all of that is a solvable problem. And obviously, there’s trauma that can be a part of why people are in that scarcity situation.
But another thing is, there’s a story you’re making up in your mind of, like, I don’t think I’m ready to launch this program, or, I don’t think I’m ready to charge that kind of money. I don’t think I’m ready. What do people think of me? There’s this fear of, like, am I enough? Am I capable? And it’s because you’re not acting on those things that could produce the outcome that you know will solve the scarcity problem you’re still locked into. I’m not ready. I’m not enough.
So I’m thinking of a client of mine. We worked together for about a year in one of my programs that didn’t have a lot of one-on-one coaching. And I kept telling him, did you need to raise your rates. You’re not charging enough. Like, you’re not even at the industry average. And he always felt like he didn’t have enough money. Now he was making six figures. So it wasn’t like he didn’t have money, but he always felt like that pinch of not enough, not enough time. I’m hustling so hard to keep up with my client base, and I’m not actually feeling like I will keep my clients if I charge more.
So we worked on what is the belief system where charging more actually is automatic for you? So instead of defaulting to these low rates, you’re defaulting to, this is what I charge, and I’m worth it. And what we create together is worth it. And all of a sudden, he realized that his fear of having enough clients again, that scarcity energy was perpetuating him holding on to the rates he was charging. And when we started doing math, so sometimes the logic brain can be a valuable asset, right?
We started to do the math, and he said, look, if we roll out the fees I’m talking about, and it wasn’t quite doubling his rates, but it was like almost like two thirds more than what he was charging. If we roll that out and you had 30% less clients, you’d be making just as much money. And guess what? You have more freedom of time. And that’s all it took for him to be sold on it.
Dr. Irena: Wow. So what I’m getting from this is that a fear of charging what we’re worth? It’s because we don’t feel that we deserve it, that we’re good enough. So it’s imposter syndrome again? Or it could be imposter syndrome again.
Melanie: Yeah, maybe it’s a cousin to imposter syndrome. Right? It’s like, am I good enough at this? Right? And I think where it is like, who is going to pay me that? And when we own our authority and we create the right messaging and we actually know how to position the value of the work that we do, we always have clients that are saying yes, because then we’re visible where those ideal clients are. Now, Irena, there’s one more piece to this that I think is worth mentioning in the confidence building and the positioning of all of this. If you go to clients who are willing to work with you at the version of you that’s in scarcity, and you try to move them up to a new level, that may not necessarily work.
And what I oftentimes see is when were ready to say yes to this more affluent and prosperous version of our work and our business or our career path or whatever it is, we might have to evolve the clients that we work with. We might have to say this subsection of this client base are the clients that I believe will value this work at that level, at that price point. And so what I do with my clients then is were looking at, all right, so what is the messaging? What’s the offer delivery system? What’s the way in which I position this? So it’s a no brainer to the clients who are always willing to invest more money to get those kinds of results.
And so it’s about knowing your audience. And one of the biggest ways we stay in imposter syndrome is trying to market something to clients who do not value that outcome.
Dr. Irena: Oh, yes.
Melanie: Right?
Dr. Irena: Yes.
Melanie: It’s like, oh, what a recipe for imposter syndrome. So you don’t have to keep marketing to the same client base. When you’ve evolved and you recognizing this is not the client base that’s going to receive my work and pay what I’m charging, let’s find the niche that will say yes. And that’s another way we can dissolve that imposter syndrome and elevate your impact and your income, because you understand how to position what you do in a way that the people who want what you do will say yes to it.
I have a program I teach called 100k Authority Accelerator, and the whole thing is, how do you accelerate to another $100,000 a year? And we do an exercise to uncover what is the value proposition of your process to your ideal client. And when my clients start to see this very specific piece of information, instead of saying, oh, I can’t charge that. That’s not my high-ticket offer, or that’s not, you know, a $20,000 offer that I could stand behind, nobody’s going to pay that. They start to say, oh, when I do this work with my client, and they value this outcome, and this outcome is worth this much to the client.
Now, of course, we got to work with it if it’s a more soft skill or an intangible, right? And we start to create the breadcrumb clarity of this is what you do for the people you work with. Then my client goes, oh, if I work with this kind of client and they value that and they’re willing to invest this kind of money to do it, I can stand behind that. This feels doable. I can be congruent with that. I’m thinking of another client of mine. She’s a consultant, and she provides this process to her clients that she, on average, can uncover somewhere between $20,000 to $200,000 in new profit for their organization. And yet she was struggling to charge them more than $5,000 for a process that took weeks and weeks and weeks to deliver.
And when I pointed out to her the average revenue that she generated for a client by going through this exercise, she was like, wow, most of my clients are getting somewhere between $150,000 to $200,000 per event that I run with them. I can double my rates. I feel confident with that. Again, it’s that clarity of like, here’s where my value is. So when I look at how does somebody charge, I am going to do some fundamentals of like, okay, well, what do you need to make for you to be able to work this many hours and you be able to do this?
But then I want to put back some data so that they can shed the imposter syndrome and really be in action around it. And it’s about 98% foolproof. I’ve had a couple clients in there who didn’t quite follow through, but most of my clients, that’s all the ammunition they need to step into that power place and dissolve the hold that those doubts have held over them up to that moment.
Dr. Irena: It’s amazing what can happen when you hold up a mirror to them, isn’t it? That’s probably something they never thought of.
Melanie: That’s what blows their minds, is they’re like, wow, this is such, in essence, a simple process. But most of us are in this constant motion, and we’re just like, let’s get the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, and we’re on this treadmill that doesn’t stop. And sometimes you need people to shine the light on your blind spot and see what’s possible that you’re overlooking, because you’re just in motion all the time, and you don’t look at it through the same lens.
I’m looking at it through the lens of how do we elevate the work you do in the world and help you make more money? And it’s a win, win, win for everybody, because somebody else is getting a problem solved that they don’t want to have in their life anymore.
Dr. Irena: So, Melanie, how prevalent do you think imposter syndrome is in business?
Melanie: Well, I would say in my industry, I might be as bold as, say, at least 50% of the experts out there dance in imposter syndrome at some point in their journey. I would say when people are newer, it’s probably more like 70% to 80%. And I think once you’ve been in business for a while, I don’t think any of us are immune to it because there’s that saying, every new level releases a new devil, right? You hit a new level of success, you hit a new income level, you start to get a new body of workout, and you start to get some traction, and there’s something new that you got to deal with, and you’re like, boom, I now am back in imposter syndrome.
I mentioned early on in our conversation, like, we’re going to talk about coaching, but let’s talk about leadership. How many people do we know that are in some kind of leadership position that feel trained and confident in leadership? Very few. And that’s a powerful way to become an imposter and to start to feel like, I don’t know, am I good enough at this? It’s like, throw somebody into a leadership position or a management position and say, go. But they don’t have any training. They don’t know how to navigate this new terrain called I actually have to inspire other people to achieve outcomes that they don’t know how to achieve.
And we don’t always know what to do. But you have to be willing to release all the stories and the unsupportive patterns and the habits that affect your ability to lead from a powerful and confident place. So that’s another place where I think imposter syndrome kicks in for people, is I don’t know how to do this, and I’ve been thrown into this role.
Dr. Irena: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I wanted to add a few things that we can do to redirect our predictive brain to fend off imposter syndrome. And one of them is reframing. Reframing allows you to look at your situation from different angles, and it provides new evidence that can drive a different set of predictions and destabilize the old ones so that you feel you deserve your place in the world.
And another one is to use positive self-affirmation, and not by telling yourself that you’re good enough or that you’re deserving, but rather by acknowledging and celebrating your strengths. And this can rewrite the narrative that we don’t deserve our success. So, personally, I like to read over my testimonials from time to time, especially when I’m deep in that imposter syndrome, and it helps. So, finally, is there anything else you’d like to say to our listeners?
Melanie: I think recognizing that something is holding us back is one of the most self-aware and powerful moments that we can experience as entrepreneurs, as experts, as human beings, and saying yes to okay, I’m going to deep dive into how do I become the version of me that’s more confident, more empowered, and more clear on how I want to show up. And so if you’re feeling that inspiration to want to go into deeper levels of clarity, one of the tools that I have, it’s absolutely free.
It’s a framework that I use to really get my message and my offering and my visibility strategy integrated so that I’m able to make impact on millions. And if you go to melaniebenson.com/irenapodcast, it’s a free gift. You can download it. Just a framework that can help you really look at do I have all those pieces in place for myself? And what does it take to be able to impact millions and make millions in the process?
Dr. Irena: Thank you very much for your time today and for this resource. So this has been a truly enlightening conversation.
Melanie: Thanks for having me, and I love talking about how the neuroscience can help us achieve more of what we want to do in this world. So thank you for a great conversation.
Dr. Irena: Thank you everyone for listening. Whatever level of imposter syndrome you or your clients have, know that it is not a life sentence. We’ve talked today about a number of ways that you can reduce or even eliminate its effect. The key thing is to harness the brain’s need to predict. We should guide it toward making decisions that are informed by objective assessments, not choices based on subconscious habits formed long ago. And since perfectionism is so clearly associated with imposter syndrome, be sure to work on this personality trait to whatever extent it’s present.
I’m Dr. Irena O’Brien, and you’ve been listening to Neuroscience of Coaching. You can find out more about me neuroscienceschool.com. The Neuroscience of Coaching is a part of the Mirasee FM podcast network, which also includes such shows as Just Between Coaches and To Lead is Human. This episode was produced by Andrew Chapman. Danny Iny is our executive producer and Marvin Del Rosario is our audio editor. To make sure you don’t miss great episodes coming up on Neuroscience of Coaching, please follow us on Mirasee FM’s YouTube channel or your favorite podcast player.
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