Turning New Leader Imposter Syndrome into Success

Do you ever grapple with that nagging sensation of not quite measuring up at work? You're not alone. Listen to this episode taken from the Femmes Finance Podcast where our host, Leadership Coach: Emily Rose Dallara unravels the often misunderstood experience of imposter syndrome.

Through an engaging chat, Emily argues that this self-doubt is less of a "syndrome" and more a reflection of natural human reaction to unfamiliar situations.

Her insights shed light on the importance of nurturing confidence in our roles and how that can influence our performance and satisfaction at work.

For those stepping into new leadership or executive positions, and even for seasoned professionals who can't shake off the stress and burnout, this episode is a treasure trove of practical advice. Emily shares her approach to helping clients not only excel in their roles but also create meaningful impact in their organizations.

So, if you've ever felt held back by the false belief that you're not good enough, tune in as we dissect these doubts and chart a course towards embracing our true potential with Emily's expert guidance.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hi everyone, this is Aselia Altaeva, and welcome to another episode of the FMS Finance Podcast, where we explore the journeys of successful female leaders, founders and investors from across the globe. We aim to champion women leaders from diverse sectors and industries in order to inspire you in your journey to financial freedom and career success. Thank you for listening to the Feminist Finance Podcast. Hi Emily, how are you today?

Speaker 2: 0:34

Hi, asal, I'm really good, thanks. I have been procrastinating going to the gym all day and so it's what? 12 pm now, so I got up early, was going to go to the gym, then I had to walk the dog, go to the grocery store. Then I had to check on Instagram check how my reel is doing. I got over 10,000 views for my latest reel, so I'm very happy with this. This is like my best record yet I am working on Instagram and it's like a slow burn. You have to really get good at it, and so it's growing really quickly now oh, that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 1:08

I definitely agree with you. Content creation is so hard. May I ask you what is your Instagram account and how can I follow you?

Speaker 2: 1:15

yes, so it's emily rose dalara coach yeah, okay, awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:21

so, emily, the reason why I really wanted to record a podcast was because recently I was invited to give a workshop at Yonsei University, which is considered as one of the top universities in South Korea, and one of the students there contacted me and asked am I dealing with imposter syndrome? Because apparently she is struggling with it and she doesn't know what to do. And she asked me to record an episode with a leadership coach who can help with the situation and deal with imposter syndrome. So here we are. This is so cool.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Yeah, Emily. So for our audience, can you please briefly introduce yourself and share about your wonderful projects that you're doing right now?

Speaker 2: 2:02

Yeah, so primarily, my passion is to help new leaders, new executives, to really nail their role, to really feel 100% confident that they know exactly what they need to do to succeed. And then we go on to help them create really big impact, really big results in the company and help them to grow the company as they grow themselves. And we do all of this without them being stressed and without them moving into burnout and without them being overwhelmed and constantly doubting themselves. So that's why I spend a lot of my time doing, and, in fact, when most of my clients come to me, they really just want to remove all this stress and this overwhelm and this self-doubt, so they can just like go and enjoy doing the things that they like to do outside of work instead of worrying about work when they're at home.

Speaker 1: 2:47

Amazing, Emily. Now let's get started to talk about imposter syndrome. For people who really don't know what is it, Can you please clarify what is exactly imposter syndrome and what are the symptoms I'm going to throw?

Speaker 2: 2:59

a spanner in here, because you might have heard me say this before. But, number one, I don't believe in labels. So imposter syndrome is definitely a term that was created by a marketer, for sure. I need to look into this. But imposter syndrome isn't something that we suffer from.

Speaker 2: 3:15

Imposter syndrome is a belief, and the belief is usually I am not good enough. Okay, that's all it is. I am not good enough, which means I'm looking at other people and they must be better than me. And what imposter syndrome really is, if you get to the crux of it is it's more of a beginner syndrome. It's I'm in this situation where I don't feel confident. Take a step back. Why don't you feel confident? Well, I don't feel confident because I maybe don't have this knowledge, I don't have this strength, maybe I'm doing something that I'm not naturally good at. Okay, cool, now what do you have to do to be good at this?

Speaker 2: 3:52

Whenever I work with people because lots of people come and tell me that they've got imposter syndrome and we go through this and a lot of the time it's just self-doubt and lack of confidence and it just has this layer of belief that they're not good enough we just get straight to it. That's what you believe. How can we deal with that now? And you asked me about the symptoms. Well, let's not treat this like a medical issue or anything that we would all have the same kind of experience of. But in my experience, imposter syndrome comes up as constantly people pleasing, working too hard, self-doubt, and it also leads to burnout, because you're constantly trying to be good enough, because you don't think you are, but all it is is a thought and a belief, and that's all it is. It's nothing else. It has no substance.

Speaker 1: 4:38

How can you advise people who are dealing with imposter syndrome?

Speaker 2: 4:42

Every single client who comes to me, the first thing that we get to do is sit down and we look at what they're amazing at doing. We have, like what do I call it? The awesomeness inventory. When I onboard clients, I literally send them this is like their first workbook to try out and we go over all the strengths that they have. What do they love to do, what do they really not like doing, what do they don't mind doing? But they kind of would rather not do it, and we start to look at all these things.

Speaker 2: 5:08

So I would advise the first thing that you should do is start to write down what you're really, really good at. Just keep highlighting your strengths and once you've highlighted your strengths, think about how that's helped you. How have these strengths helped you to get where you are right now? And this helps to shift from. It's like I always call it like flipping the stick.

Speaker 2: 5:26

If you're an imposter syndrome, you're thinking you're not good at a lot of things and you just forget about all these great things that you've done. So I would say it's kind of a band-aid, because it's not something that we can solve overnight, but kind of a band-aid that's going to help you to move into this different belief and different mindset is I'm really good at stuff and it's actually really helped me to get where I am and maybe it's impacted other people and it's helped other people in their role. That's what you want to be focusing on, versus comparing yourself. And that's another symptom. Actually, comparison items. You, when you've got imposter syndrome, you start comparing yourself to everybody. But what is it that they say?

Speaker 1: 6:05

somebody else's outsides are very different to what's on the inside, like you don't see what's inside of them so, uh, the first step is asking yourself who are you, what do you do, what do you like to do, and what is the next steps after doing this self-analysis, how can they become more confident and pursue their dreams?

Speaker 2: 6:26

So, because it's based on this belief that I'm not good enough, you have to start showing yourself where you are good at. One of my clients was a chief marketing officer and she actually Julia. I've had her on my podcast, I'm bubbling out, so go listen to her story. That might help as well. But she actually had really bad imposter syndrome because she couldn't believe that she could be an entrepreneur. She was like who am I to think that I could possibly be an entrepreneur? And the way we built that is number one. We built rituals that supported her well-being. So this is something nice that you could do.

Speaker 2: 6:59

So once you know what you're good, you can start creating rituals that emphasize that and make you feel good. They are things like giving yourself time in the morning to yourself, so you don't start the day in a space of lack. You start your day in a space of abundance. So maybe you've done meditation, maybe you've given yourself time to walk the dog or make a nice breakfast. Setting the day's foundation is really important to keeping your belief system in a more positive direction, if that makes sense. So you have to set your foundations in the day and when you do feel that you've been triggered.

Speaker 2: 7:34

So she used to go into the day and do some work, and then she might go on LinkedIn and then she'd see all these other entrepreneurs. So she 'd already set her day out right. But she would go on LinkedIn and she would get triggered by something like a post, and the best thing that you can do then is step back and write down what the trigger is, and you'll know what a trigger is because you'll have a physical or an emotional reaction. So, to give you an example, she would go on LinkedIn, scroll through it, and somebody might talk about a business that they've built that was maybe similar to what she wanted to build, and she would think there's no way I can do it. I don't know as much as they do all these different thoughts and beliefs.

Speaker 2: 8:14

And so we would get her to sit down, notice. She would write down I feel like this this is how my body feels, this is how my heart feels. I feel heavy, I feel sad, I feel worried. Right, we would write all this stuff down, okay, and what does that make you think about yourself? Okay, well, that makes me think that I'm not good enough, that I'll never do this. And then the next thing you ask always is how true? Is that? Okay, based on the strengths that I have and the abilities that I've had and the success that I've had, is that really true? And usually the answer is no. And if the answer is yes, okay. If it is true that I am not able to do this, how are we going to change that? What needs to happen and usually what needs to happen is literally 99% of the time it's a skill gap. So and this goes back to bigness syndrome Most of the time when you don't feel like you're good enough or you're not confident enough, it's usually to do with experience, time and skills is usually to do with experience, time and skills.

Speaker 2: 9:21

So what could you go learn? Do you need to maybe slow down, take a step back and realize that to be successful it takes time, no matter what anybody tells you Like. Honestly, new leaders think that they have to be superstars, successful, that they should never fail, that they should never make mistakes, but all of this is what makes you successful. I've had three failed businesses in the past and that could have stopped me from trying again. But I just keep going and I fail at loads of things all the time, and you have to develop this resilience to failure, which is again linked with imposter syndrome.

Speaker 1: 9:56

Emily, because we're doing podcasts about finance. I think it's very much important to understand how imposter syndrome impacts our financial success or our financial wellness, so can you please explain to us? Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2: 10:11

So again, it comes back to belief. If we believe we're not good enough, then we will not be good enough ever. Belief If we believe we're not good enough, then we will not be good enough ever. We'll never believe that we can achieve stuff which slows down action taking. If we've got a big challenge for example, if we want to go and get a big role, okay, but from day one we think we're not good enough and we don't do anything about it, we just continue to be in the space of being not good enough, not believing in ourselves, then we will never take the action that we need to gain success, to make money, to put the offer in front of people, to maybe message people who might be able to help us make more money in our business or in our career, to be able to ask for more money and negotiate on salaries, that kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 10:57

You have to just do things. That's the only way you get over this imposter syndrome, beginner syndrome, and it all just comes back down to action. I would say I was very fortunate because when I worked at Bitcoincom back in the day, I was taught about financial wellness and investment. That was kind of like you had to know about it, I was a marketing manager in that space, and so if I believed that I wasn't worthy of working in this space or worthy of being a marketing manager at a big crypto company, I would have never have learned that kind of thing, you know. So you just stop yourself from getting opportunity to be financially successful.

Speaker 1: 11:36

Yeah, that's excellent advice. Thank you so much for your time, Emily. What kind of advice can you give to a young woman listening to our episode today?

Speaker 2: 11:43

Try and be gentle with yourself, because a lot of the time and that's easier said than done a better advice would be notice when you are not being nice to yourself, because when I was younger I was not very nice to myself. I would tell myself how terrible I was and how bad I was at everything and, la la, la. I want you, if you're going to take anything from today, I want you to notice when you're doing that and replace it with something a bit nicer. Or like, imagine you're talking to a child or a best friend. I wish someone had told me like you don't have to be this hard on yourself, like everything is going to be fine.

Speaker 1: 12:18

I wish someone had told me, like you don't have to be this hard on yourself, like everything is going to be fine, excellent, thank you so much, emily. Thank you for listening to the Femus Finance Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform, such as Spotify and iTunes. Thank you for always supporting us. Enjoy your day.