Overcoming Impostor Syndrome: The Power of Positive Thinking - I Will Not Lose Podcast - #0017

Transcript

[00:00:05.390] Yo, yo, yo, what's up, man? Good morning, good evening, good night, good afternoon, good dusk, good dawn.
[00:00:13.350] Shout out to you whatever time you're listening, wherever you're listening from, whether that's Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible, Amazon Music, Samsung, Podchaser, Deezer, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, YouTube.
[00:00:26.230] If you're watching in, glad I have a shirt on today.
[00:00:30.350] Coming live from my voice to your phone, computer, headphones, TV, car stereo.
[00:00:35.890] I'm going to check my analytics and see if any of you guys are listening from your smartwatch,
[00:00:40.110] but I won't be disappointed if you're not.
[00:00:42.490] Bluetooth speaker, hope it sounds good wherever you're listening from.
[00:00:46.770] You could have been anywhere in the world, but you are here right now.
[00:00:49.910] Let's take a moment and be present to recognize that it is now, right now.
[00:00:55.040] Whether you're right now is working, running, exercising, cleaning, laying down, flying,
[00:01:00.640] driving, shoveling snow, be grateful we're alive.
[00:01:06.620] Failure can be frightening.
[00:01:08.220] However, as Winston Churchill reminds us, success is all about going from failure to
[00:01:12.420] failure without losing enthusiasm.
[00:01:15.000] This is I Will Not Lose Podcast, where we set out to prove everything is learned from
[00:01:19.810] failure, and we must persevere and recognize it as one step closer to success.
[00:01:24.390] I'm your host, Tony Ortiz.
[00:01:26.390] Let's jump right in.
[00:01:28.750] Ah, you see what I did there?
[00:01:30.350] Trying to explain what the podcast is and who I am in every episode.
[00:01:34.470] That was a tip, a shout out to the Reddit podcasting community.
[00:01:39.270] I'm going to put some of this stuff into practice.
[00:01:41.970] Just a quick disclaimer.
[00:01:43.950] It's not what the episode's going to be about, but I was at the National Center for Civil
[00:01:48.390] and Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia this past week.
[00:01:52.490] My God.
[00:01:53.490] Um, it was absolutely, uh, completely mind altering experience. Um, you know, I knew,
[00:02:02.290] but I had no idea. So after seeing not only defenders, but perpetrators of civil rights
[00:02:11.270] and things as simple as your freedom of speech, uh, you know, after hearing the story of a woman
[00:02:16.990] who couldn't perform without the government in South Africa, writing her a note, confirming
[00:02:22.870] the address of her mother saying, hey, we just want to make sure this is where your mother lives.
[00:02:29.460] Watch what you say. People, government storming into my house. Nobody's going to do that
[00:02:35.320] because I'm putting out this podcast. So I just wanted to shout out a quick disclaimer
[00:02:40.280] that I have a whole new respect. I've always been intentional with my words,
[00:02:44.740] but just the fact that I can put this out and you guys can listen to it wherever on whatever
[00:02:50.740] platform is really amazing. So I know I mentioned it, but wow. Shout out to our freedom of speech
[00:02:57.680] and everybody who's fought to defend it. All right, let's go. What are we talking about today?
[00:03:04.320] Imposter syndrome. What is it? What can it affect? I'll share some of my embarrassing
[00:03:09.940] personal stories and maybe even some of the coping techniques that I've learned.
[00:03:14.320] but if you're not familiar with imposter syndrome it is a common experience that high achievers feel
[00:03:23.520] of anxiety it's like if you've ever had the feeling that maybe you don't belong at your job
[00:03:29.420] like everyone at your job is much more educated than you uh much more qualified for that position
[00:03:35.180] literally you feel like an imposter so yeah you just you feel like a fraud if you've ever been
[00:03:43.760] I know I've been at a job where I'm like, what am I doing here? How did I get in the door? Who
[00:03:50.700] trusted me with this position? And what I've kind of learned from that. But the whole imposter is
[00:03:57.000] the idea that you're going to be exposed as a fraud, that suddenly somebody is going to find
[00:04:01.280] out you don't have the qualifications and you're going to lose everything or whatever the actual
[00:04:06.480] fear itself is. I'm not positive, but this was identified by, I'm not actually going to quote
[00:04:15.440] the psychologist because I didn't check my sources, but let's say around the 1970s,
[00:04:20.920] they realized a common thing in high achieving individuals that a sense of self-doubt,
[00:04:27.320] this sense of anxiety, even though there was overwhelming evidence of their competence.
[00:04:32.220] and so they coined the term and studies have been done since then. This was interesting as I was
[00:04:39.260] looking into it doing some research for the episode. There's subtypes of imposter syndrome
[00:04:43.880] like the perfectionist subtype where individuals set impossibly high standards for themselves and
[00:04:50.560] then feel like failures if they fall short. I'm definitely, definitely in the perfectionist
[00:04:57.060] subtype of imposter syndrome. I never put the two and two together, but yeah. There's the superhero
[00:05:03.400] subtype where the individual feels like they need to be able to do everything themselves and they're
[00:05:08.040] afraid to ask for help. Yeah, I'm sure everyone or a lot of people can relate with that. Then
[00:05:14.960] there's the expert subtype where the individual feels like they need to know everything about
[00:05:19.060] their field and they're afraid of being exposed as a fraud. So this can all affect your life
[00:05:27.580] If you're dealing with imposter syndrome, you might not even realize that you fear of,
[00:05:34.280] you know, especially when you think, okay, I'm competent.
[00:05:36.680] I have all the qualifications.
[00:05:38.080] I deserve to be here.
[00:05:39.740] Why am I feeling like I don't belong here?
[00:05:42.140] If you don't actually journal and dig deep into that, it might be, you know, it'll manifest
[00:05:47.080] itself in anxiety.
[00:05:48.420] It'll manifest itself in just fear, angst, maybe even depression.
[00:05:56.800] So low self-esteem, there's definitely mental health ailments, I would say, or maladaptive
[00:06:06.540] behaviors that you can generate from letting imposter syndrome get out.
[00:06:11.260] So I do want to go into some coping techniques, but I have some notes here.
[00:06:15.620] And it was funny.
[00:06:16.420] I said, yeah, I felt imposter syndrome.
[00:06:18.260] I'll tell them about that one time.
[00:06:20.040] Then I'm like, wait a second.
[00:06:21.260] This has been a recurring theme in my life, something I've felt as early as even last
[00:06:26.600] year.
[00:06:27.120] I mean, it's insane, but, um, let's see. All right. Personal stories. Well, let's go. We're
[00:06:33.900] not going to go way back in my past. Let's just go a few months ago. If you listen back to my
[00:06:38.300] first episode and the goal is to fail. Um, I said, why am I doing this? Who am I to be an orator?
[00:06:44.540] You know? Um, but yet here I am every week putting out long form spoken content. I am by definition
[00:06:52.780] an orator. So if I can tell myself I'm going to do it, and trust me, I constantly feel imposter
[00:07:01.300] syndrome even with doing the podcast. I mean, I was sitting there earlier today and I'm looking
[00:07:07.080] at my, I'm getting ready to throw a podcast on. I go to Spotify, throw on my podcast section.
[00:07:12.800] First one is a recent one I followed, Make It Click by a friend of mine, Christine Rothdeutsch.
[00:07:18.640] So I'm going to be putting that into my rotation. And as I'm looking through, you got Malcolm Gladwell there, Joe Rogan, Brilliant Idiots. And then I see I Will Not Lose by Tony Ortiz. And there's my name right next to Joe Rogan in the Spotify app.
[00:07:34.860] and there's somebody that has me followed and saved in their podcast that sees my thumbnail
[00:07:40.060] that I designed every week or every time they go for podcasts. So yeah, it's very easy to say I'm
[00:07:48.100] in the same space. Not that I'm even in the same league numbers wise or talent wise or experience
[00:07:54.080] wise as any of these podcasts, but I'm still sitting right next to them giving people the
[00:08:01.960] choice when they're looking for something to throw on and listen to my voice. So I'm absolutely
[00:08:08.300] grateful for that. One of the things you can do to combat imposter syndrome is just remind yourself
[00:08:13.560] of your successes. You know, remind yourself you've been able to put out content consistently
[00:08:20.620] for three or four months every single week, something you set out to do. So sure, the imposter
[00:08:28.340] syndrome is going to come. It's going to come when you see other people that put content out or
[00:08:33.700] somebody drops an episode that you can tell, put them tons of time into editing and they have
[00:08:39.800] multiple, or they have a really fire guest and the conversation is just flowing. And you're like,
[00:08:44.820] man, how am I supposed to compete with that? Just me sitting here talking. It's crazy. But
[00:08:50.920] as I'm editing the video of me and my son's episode that I hope to drop next week or the
[00:08:57.590] week after, um, he's getting some of his drawings together. We're going to feature them on the
[00:09:02.490] episode. So I have my son on with a conversation about a multitude of things. We have about a 45
[00:09:09.250] minute conversation and it's amazing. I can't wait to drop it, but I'm here editing a video
[00:09:15.470] and I'm thinking, man, I'm not a video editor and don't get me wrong. I have stuff to learn,
[00:09:21.010] but I got into, uh, I think my first paid portfolio piece for a video was in 2016.
[00:09:31.210] Uh, Gil Thompson posted a video of a lyric video that I did for him all the way back in maybe 2015
[00:09:38.510] or so. And, um, he was either, yeah, I think he was my first paid project. And then, you know,
[00:09:47.140] I still do motion graphics video to this day, but I'm like, what am I doing video editing? Who am I
[00:09:53.360] to be a video editor? Every time I go to buy a new tool or a new piece for my stuff, I say,
[00:09:58.700] I don't do this professionally. But yet, I just spent the last two weeks working on a documentary
[00:10:05.350] for Black History Month. Shout out to the NAACP in Bayonne. We put together Moving Us Forward,
[00:10:12.050] the African-American contributions to the city of Bayonne. And it's like, this is going on
[00:10:20.200] broadcast. Maybe it's time to say, Tony, you really do this. Maybe it's time to say, okay,
[00:10:25.720] people pay you. You're good enough at this that people pay you. And we can get into different
[00:10:31.380] prices and different categories of stuff. But I like to think if you're going to be doing
[00:10:35.880] something professionally, if you can get somebody to pay you and then them to refer somebody else,
[00:10:42.460] you're in the mix. You're at least good enough. So it's about time for me to remind myself and
[00:10:47.340] say, okay, I'm good enough at this. And yeah, there's mistakes even when putting the podcast
[00:10:52.420] together. There's little mistakes I let fly that I would never let go in a paid video, but this is a
[00:10:58.840] hobby. This is fun. This is therapeutic. This is not something that somebody's paying for that my
[00:11:04.960] name or reputation is really on that much. So, I mean, as I get into talking about editing,
[00:11:12.440] this is how often I go through imposter syndrome. I'm editing the audio and I'm wondering how to do
[00:11:20.440] a gate in this program, if there's a better way to do it, because I just can't seem to get it right.
[00:11:24.780] And I think about audio engineers, like shout out to Jay Palos, who recommended the mics for
[00:11:30.120] the podcast. I worked with him together at another job that I felt imposter syndrome at,
[00:11:36.140] but I'm thinking, man, he knows this. People pay him. He does this professionally. He spent time
[00:11:42.960] as an audio engineer. He can run the graphic equalizer way better than I can. So who am I
[00:11:48.560] to be editing my own audio? And somebody comes by and says, hey, Tony, it sounds fine. I don't
[00:11:54.920] have to put the volume up. I can hear everything you're saying, you know, maybe it's time after
[00:12:00.260] spending most of my teenage years and twenties editing rap lyrics and rock music. Maybe it's
[00:12:08.600] time to say, okay, I'm at least decent enough of an audio engineer that people aren't turning
[00:12:13.360] my stuff off because of the audio quality. I mean, my voice might be one thing, but it's not
[00:12:20.770] on, it's not unlistenable. It's not unlistenable by any means, but this is the perils of being
[00:12:27.290] self-taught. You know, when you go and you look at a forum and there's all sorts of industry lingo
[00:12:33.270] and you may know it as something else, you may know it as the nickname of the plugin that you
[00:12:37.830] did and you get the gist of what it's supposed to do. But it's another thing that brings in the
[00:12:43.630] self-doubt. Like, you know, did I learn everything the way I was supposed to? Did I skip over some
[00:12:48.250] basics? Was there some things that I didn't do? And I've even taken formal classes on things that
[00:12:53.970] I'm self-taught about. And at the end of the course, it was like, yeah, I picked up that
[00:12:59.670] one little thing here or there, but I really wasn't far off. I wasn't doing this wrong
[00:13:04.510] the whole time. I just want to take a quick second and stress the fact that there's a
[00:13:15.460] difference between self-doubt and doubting yourself and being humble. And there's a difference between
[00:13:21.860] reminding yourself of your accomplishments and being cocky. So for the latter, reminding yourself
[00:13:31.330] of your accomplishments, you know, there's always going to be somebody better. So you don't say
[00:13:36.070] something to say, ha, I'm the top of, I'm the king of the mountain at the top of this hill. I'm the
[00:13:41.090] absolute best. You know what I mean? For some reason, as humans, we like to see that. We like
[00:13:46.610] to hear the guy at the top, the superhero, the Goku, the world champion. We like them to talk
[00:13:54.530] shit until another guy comes by and it's the heavyweight contender of the world. It's just
[00:14:00.090] something we love to see the clash of the titans. But reminding yourself, I am accomplished. I do
[00:14:06.610] deserve to be here. Kind of like what I'm doing as I go on this episode. I don't say this to say,
[00:14:11.530] hey guys, I edit my own podcast. I'm an audio engineer. No, it's not that. It's like, I'm not
[00:14:17.290] saying it to impress you. If anything, I'm saying it to impress upon you. Like I probably stifle
[00:14:23.390] myself a whole bunch thinking that I'm not good enough at something that I'm probably pretty damn
[00:14:30.690] good at. It's insane. So this is kind of anecdotal for myself, but also to push out to other people.
[00:14:39.480] like, look, if you're feeling self-doubt where you're at, try some of these things. Try to
[00:14:44.360] remind yourself of your accomplishments. I mean, so I was writing my show notes. I was thinking
[00:14:50.300] of a time that I am at, I get asked to speak at an entrepreneur panel. I believe I was invited
[00:14:56.940] by Rita Guthrie. Shout out to Rita Guthrie, Open Door Public Relations. Anyway, I ended up at this
[00:15:04.580] thing. It was on the importance of writing in business. So they had a bunch of different
[00:15:13.840] people in different professions. I was the entrepreneur sitting next to a business owner.
[00:15:18.880] There was a doctor on my left. Next to her was a realtor. And I'm sitting here thinking,
[00:15:25.400] what am I doing on this stage sitting next to a doctor? This doesn't make any sense.
[00:15:30.500] doctor in writing, not a medical doctor. I'm not exactly sure what her doctorate was,
[00:15:36.480] but her title was doctor, and that's a hell of an accomplishment regardless.
[00:15:40.660] So here I am sitting without a degree at the college that I dropped out of, getting ready
[00:15:48.540] to speak to 80 entrepreneurial students about the importance of writing and how often I use it.
[00:15:55.080] and I'm thinking, who am I to be up here? And I hear about two or three people down,
[00:16:02.100] they're saying, oh, well, you know, I didn't like this, but I thought it was cool. And I thought I
[00:16:06.520] would definitely check it out. I saw this ad and here they're talking about one of our,
[00:16:11.660] one of my clients. So the guys that I was working with, uh, shout out, we were going under the name
[00:16:17.760] of view designs at the time. Um, one of our clients, they had seen our ads and they live
[00:16:24.200] 40, 50 miles away from Bethlehem where the restaurant was. And they're talking about
[00:16:29.500] going and checking it out. So I'm like, okay, I may not be able to fix a car. I may not be good
[00:16:34.180] at everything, but in terms of what we do and what people are paying for, the word's getting out.
[00:16:39.300] And that's just of our job. And it's a great to introduce yourself, somebody, when you say,
[00:16:43.580] oh, I've did the marketing that you saw that's coercing you to drive like, I'm sorry, maybe 40
[00:16:49.920] minutes, not 40 miles. That's real far. I don't think they were 40 miles. I feel like I said that
[00:16:55.480] wrong. But, you know, I reminded myself, okay, maybe I do deserve to sit here. And now as I'm
[00:17:01.720] sitting here with less anxiety, they go and one of the people ask, one of the people, one of the
[00:17:09.560] students asked, what is networking and why is it important? So I said, oh, I got this one. Raise
[00:17:14.880] my hand and I say, I stand up and I say, who in here has a business card? One person raises their
[00:17:22.160] hand. So I make a beeline to that woman. I hand her my business card. She hands me hers. I say,
[00:17:27.240] I'm going to reach out to you. We'll get together for coffee for about 30, 40 minutes. You tell me
[00:17:31.520] what I do. I'll tell you what I do. And, you know, we'll go from there and see if there's anybody I
[00:17:38.020] can connect you to. She's like, all right, cool. I said, no guys, I wasn't like, I'm actually going
[00:17:44.270] to do that. I'm actually going to reach out to her. And I think anybody who has business cards,
[00:17:48.810] you know, you're making a mistake. They say, well, we don't, we don't do anything. What is
[00:17:53.350] our business card going to say? It's going to have your name and your phone number on it.
[00:17:57.210] But networking is the idea of going out and figuring out how you can offer some sort of
[00:18:03.110] value to somebody else professionally. And I said, I'll leave my card up here since you guys forgot
[00:18:09.390] it, but I'm not going to reach out to you. You guys got to get my card and you got to send me
[00:18:13.390] an email. And I'd say about 15 of the 80 students did of those 15, about six of them actually sat
[00:18:21.270] down with me. And I ended up going into a short partnership with one of them, um, in a web design,
[00:18:29.410] uh, got him some client work for web design and we worked on some stuff. So it's like,
[00:18:36.730] at least they got some sort of value. Nobody was sitting there saying, who's this guy up here on
[00:18:43.980] the panel? What is he saying? Shut up. I want to listen to the doctor. You know, I had something
[00:18:47.880] to offer to the panel. I was able to be there. And so it's, uh, it's just, you can't get in your
[00:18:55.480] own head. You can't, you can't do that. You got to reframe your thinking, like focusing on your
[00:19:03.640] accomplishments rather than your inadequacies as one coping technique. Seeking support from others,
[00:19:10.200] realizing that there's other people that go through imposter syndrome. Einstein didn't
[00:19:14.960] think he was a genius. And here it's like he's literally the picture next to the definition of
[00:19:21.120] genius. And he didn't think so of himself. So this affects everybody. This doesn't just affect
[00:19:27.460] people in low paying jobs, middle paying jobs. This affects executives, CEOs, everybody, you
[00:19:34.120] know, um, focusing on your accomplishments, developing a growth mindset. Um, this will all
[00:19:44.140] help you overcome your feelings of inadequacy. So definitely something you want to do. And this is
[00:19:50.440] one of my favorite, this is what I've found through the podcast, but the best advice is just
[00:19:55.680] Embrace your authentic self, like recognizing that everyone experiences self-doubt and inadequacies,
[00:20:04.040] realizing there's just things that some people will like, some people won't like.
[00:20:10.260] Focusing on your strengths helps you build confidence in yourself.
[00:20:14.420] You know, not everybody likes every decision you make.
[00:20:17.800] I know I went out on a limb a few months ago and decided I wanted to grow my hair out.
[00:20:23.620] I love it.
[00:20:24.620] I had long hair for years after I cut it.
[00:20:28.040] I dreamt about it.
[00:20:29.880] I would dream about it and play with it.
[00:20:32.120] And it's just something about calming.
[00:20:35.180] And now I'm learning to manage it and keep it.
[00:20:38.880] So if I can't manage it, then I'll cut it and go back to what I know.
[00:20:43.060] But for the meantime, I feel myself with it.
[00:20:47.620] And it's something that I'm going to continue to do.
[00:20:50.380] Um, the clothes that I choose to wear when I come on the podcast are more myself.
[00:20:56.780] Like, don't get me wrong.
[00:20:57.960] I'll rock slacks and a collar shirt all day.
[00:21:01.000] But, uh, for the most part, I tend to wear dark colored jeans, a collared shirt, you
[00:21:07.680] know, and having to choose and be somewhat visual because this is a shout out to everybody
[00:21:15.660] listening on Apple or Google podcasts or Spotify, but we do syndicate this to YouTube as well too.
[00:21:23.120] So being that about 60% of people are going to watch their podcasts, there's decisions that I
[00:21:31.440] have to make. And it's fun because I'll put more thought into dressing up to come to my basement
[00:21:39.520] for the podcast than I will into what I'm wearing when I go out in the street, unless I have an
[00:21:45.740] actual meeting or somebody that I'm meeting specifically, in which case I'll choose color
[00:21:51.920] psychology and wear different colors based on what the meeting is about or what I'm trying
[00:21:57.240] to accomplish in that meeting. But for the most part, I don't take a ton of thought. So embracing
[00:22:03.800] myself, realizing that people are listening. It's funny. It's easy. You know, somebody says,
[00:22:09.840] well, how many listens you get? How many downloads you get? Oh, well, you know,
[00:22:12.920] Joe Rogan gets one point some million per snippet on YouTube. It's like, you know, that's great.
[00:22:19.520] Imagine if that many people came to hear you speak in a room and we're approaching it being
[00:22:27.560] outside of a room, a large room. So if you think visually, that's a lot of people. And it's funny
[00:22:35.300] because you're going to hear on the episode, Jaden says that to me, my son, Jaden, when we're
[00:22:40.320] talking on the episode, he's like, you don't understand, you get 300 likes, but 300 people,
[00:22:46.280] imagine that's a lot of people in a room that are listening to you or doing this. That's super,
[00:22:52.880] super cool. So all these things, I hope help you deal with imposter syndrome. I mean, I could go
[00:23:02.610] on for an hour about all the different times in my life that I've felt something and then had to
[00:23:07.270] remind myself, you know what, maybe you are already doing this, you know? And so it's super
[00:23:13.950] interesting, but that's about all I got. Announcements, um, big V or little V, little
[00:23:22.290] sis, whatever you want to call her. V Alvarado is in town. So we're going to do everything we
[00:23:27.930] can over the next day or two. Probably just after this episode drops, we're going to try
[00:23:33.150] to record an episode. So I definitely want to get her on the pod. Got the episode that I'm just
[00:23:38.730] waiting on my son to get his drawings together so we can really put together an awesome piece
[00:23:44.690] of content. Spend more time on that one because that's one's going to live a little longer. It's
[00:23:50.250] not really so much just this is what's going on this week. So that's going to last. Other than
[00:23:56.830] that, big plans. We are now officially in season two. So if I haven't put the new background up
[00:24:07.660] already, I'll switch it up for the beginning of next episode. But this will be the first episode
[00:24:13.300] we're posting in season two. So expect some big differences, some big changes. Champions are made
[00:24:20.960] when no one's watching. So if you've been listening, you've been checking in every day,
[00:24:27.100] there's not going to be, I'm sorry, every week, there's not going to be a huge difference in
[00:24:31.940] season two because we've been upgrading as we go throughout season one. So if you go back and you
[00:24:37.720] look at the beginning of season one, and then you look at even just the set now, 17 episodes in,
[00:24:47.040] you see that it's definitely grown, definitely changed. So the idea is not to do one big,
[00:24:54.300] huge change. It's the idea of success learned from failure and slow growth and growth over time,
[00:25:01.880] slowly improving on what was and making something that is better. That's all I got, folks. That felt
[00:25:10.740] good. This is I Will Not Lose podcast, stories of success learned from failure. To support the show,
[00:25:16.620] visit the website, shows.acast.com slash I Will Not Lose. Let me know. I'm thinking of putting
[00:25:23.860] together a tip jar through my website, just something. It is what it is. Just like if we
[00:25:29.420] were having a conversation at a bar, I was making a drink for you. I'm just going to have a small
[00:25:34.240] spot. It's not quite sponsorship, but it could buy me a coffee. So I'd be pretty interested to
[00:25:40.260] see if any of you would drop a dollar or five or 10 or 20 through a tip jar. So working on some
[00:25:46.740] small monetization upgrades. In the meantime, subscribe on your favorite podcast player,
[00:25:52.480] share this episode link, leave a comment. Your contribution is appreciated. Thanks for listening.
[00:25:58.180] No, really, thank you for listening.