The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Outsmart Imposter Syndrome: End the Suffering. Free Your Mind. Claim Your Inner Success by Tara Halliday

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Outsmart Imposter Syndrome: End the Suffering. Free Your Mind. Claim Your Inner Success by Tara Halliday https://amzn.to/3ZkJv56 Completesuccess.co.uk Confused, exhausted, feeling like a fraud? Outsmart Imposter Syndrome presents a radical new approach to eliminating imposter syndrome for good. This ultimate guide to eliminating self-doubt and achieving your full potential draws on the latest research in psychology, neuroscience and high-performance coaching. It’s systematic, practical, and has proven to be the most effective method for defeating imposter syndrome. READ THIS BOOK TO: Gain clarity on imposter syndrome myths and misconceptions Uncover the real cause of imposter syndrome (Hint: it’s not you!) Discover the one belief that changes everything Master the step-by-step process to eliminate imposter syndrome forever Achieve effortless confidence and deep self-acceptance About the Author Dr Tara Halliday is a specialist imposter syndrome coach, qualified holistic therapist, Amazon #1 best-selling author and popular speaker. In her Inner Success programme, Tara works with executives one-to-one to eliminate imposter syndrome for good. The result is effortless confidence, natural resilience and deep-self-acceptance.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends, the big show, my family and friends.

The big podcast, Circus 10 in the Sky. We're bringing you all the brightest people. The show where all the billionaires come. The CEOs, the brilliant minds, the great new authors, the newsmakers, all the hottest people we've had on the show. We did 655 shows in the last year, ending in August. And we're planning on doing 1,000 shows this year. So if you're not keeping up all the shows, damn it, I want you to quit your day job and make sure you listen to every single one.

Don't do that. Don't quit your day job. Just work weekends, people. Listen to the show. We always have the most brilliant minds on the show, and as always, we have another one here today. We're going to be talking about imposter syndrome and what it is, how it works, how and why you might be suffering from it, and how you can free your mind. Not like my psychiatrist wants to free my mind through a funnel lobotomy. So this might be a better way to do things, healthier, and you'll have a memory too, but you'll probably smile less.

Anyway, guys, we're going to be talking to her about her amazing new book that's coming out tomorrow and all that good stuff. But as always, that's the setup to guilt and shame you, to refer the show to your family, friends, and relatives. Put your arm around them. Look deep into their soul and say, you know what? If only you could be smarter and listen to the Chris Voss Show. I know that you can do it.

Go to goodreads.com for Chris Voss. LinkedIn.com for Chris Voss. YouTube. for says Chris Voss, linkedin.com, for says Chris Voss, youtube.com, for says Chris Voss, and Chris Voss won on the tickety-tockety over there, as the kids like to call it. No, they don't. She is an amazing new author,

multi-book author, I should have mentioned as well. Dr. Tara Halliday is on the show with us today, and she is a specialist in being a imposter syndrome coach so what she'll do is she'll help coach you to have more imposter syndrome no that's not true that's not right you read that wrong chris no she's a she's a coach to help you solve your issues with imposter syndrome am i an imposter on this one i don't know what's going on this i this might be my doppelganger who's on the show today uh anyway she's the author of the newest book that comes out september 14th 2023 outsmart imposter syndrome end the suffering free your mind claim your inner success tara holiday joins

us on the show and she'll be talking to us about that uh she guides high achieving leaders to eliminate imposter syndrome and develop energy, focus, calm, resilience, and effortless confidence. She has a PhD in engineering and over 20 years experience as a qualified holistic therapist and certified coach. She brings a practical and scientific approach to helping high performers reach their highest potential. She's the author of the number one bestseller, Unmasking, The Coach's Guide to Imposter Syndrome and Outsmart Imposter Syndrome that's just coming out now, we'll be talking about today. Her mission and passion are to free high achievers and leaders from unnecessary internal suffering and bleeding that they can live healthy, happy, meaningful, successful lives.

I added the bleeding part. Welcome to the show, Tara. How are you? I'm very well. Thank you, Chris. I'm delighted to be here. Delighted. There you go.

And you're coming to us across the pond because delighted sounds like something the English would use in a proper sense. Absolutely. Absolutely. There you go. God save, well, I guess it's the king now. The king. Yeah.

We have a new king. I don't know about all that, but that's another show. So there you go. God save, well, I guess it's the king now. The king, yeah. I don't know about all that, but that's another show. So there you go. But the queen was elegant and wonderful. So give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs, please. That's outsmartimpostorsyndrome.com. There you go. And give us a, what motivated you to write this book?

You wrote your previous book on unmasking imposter syndrome. What motivated you to write this book? You wrote your previous book on unmasking imposter syndrome. What motivated you to write this one? So my previous book was for coaches. So it's for coaches to help them help their clients with imposter syndrome. This one is for people who are experiencing imposter syndrome itself. So that's the direction. The reason for it is like the bigger reason is that imposter syndrome affects over 70% of high achievers at some point in their careers. And the stress of it, it can lead people to end their careers. It can lead to burnout.

It's serious stuff. And there's not a lot of good help out there. There you go. And I've heard a lot of good help out there. There you go. And I've heard a lot of people talk about it, especially women. I seem to see a lot of women that talk about it the most. I don't know why. Maybe that's because women are self-reflective and they're always thinking of what goes on with them.

Men, we're just kind of like, I don't know, I'll just do it. And we don't really think about it. We probably have some sort of imposter syndrome, but it's kind of like us and doctors we never go have it looked at um so uh what is imposter syndrome how would you define this or how is it defined yeah so imposter syndrome is the secret feeling of being a fraud when you're not and with that comes the fear of being found out ah i for 15 years i've always thought people were going to figure out That I'm not really a podcaster And that I'm just really good

At Legos And Yeah I don't know That's the best thing you can do up the fly folks, Legos Oh you better joke there, you fill it in for me You write the show and tell me when I should have said See I'm an imposter on Comedy I don't know. Oh, you better joke there. You fill it in for me. You write the show and tell me when I should have said.

See, I'm an imposter on comedy. Comedy? It must be the end of the day, man. What's going on, Chris? It's hump day in the middle of the week, Wednesday. So give us a 30,000 overview of the book and what's inside. Okay. So the book itself is about imposter syndrome. So it introduces it, what it is, what it isn't, the symptoms. But really what it is, is I'm sharing the secrets of how to get rid

of it when you understand what the root cause of it is. And that's really the whole point. So I go step by step through it. And because there's a lot of hand waviness with imposter syndrome, it all seems a bit vague to people. I've gone right down into the hard science of why the process works, how you can get rid of it, and exactly why, right down to the neurochemicals in the brain. Ah, so there's some neurochemicalization to it. So tell us a little bit about your origin story and your background. What got you down the road of life and the twists and turns of the roadway and into this field? Yeah, well, it definitely was a twist and turn. I did my degree in engineering. I got a PhD in engineering.

But the reason I was in engineering is because actually, when I was 13, I decided I wanted to be a psychologist. My family didn't want that for me. So I spent a 10-year diversion going off into engineering, finally came back trained as a holistic therapist. And that's where I started. And then moving forward, I was seeing clients, and some of them kept coming back. And they're not supposed to do that. They're supposed to come for a little while and then, you know, fly and be free. But you know, I'm not supposed to be a crutch for them. So then I dove into, why do they keep coming back? That turned out

to be their beliefs. So I got trained in a very specific coaching around beliefs, the belief of unconditional worth. And then one of my clients came and said, hey, what's this imposter syndrome? This was like 2016. And I'd never heard of it at that point. So I researched it, and there was this big light bulb moment. Oh, good grief. This is the belief of unconditional worth. So that's how I got connected to imposter syndrome. The rest is, yeah. So did you find that you were suffering from that throughout your life, maybe?

I never noticed it. I didn't have words for it probably the strongest place it came out when i first graduated i applied for a graduate trainee program with this big engineering firm they were doing all sorts of tests and they they came back and they said we don't want to offer you a a graduate apprenticeship effectively they said we want to put you on a fast track management. Oh, there you go. That's better. Yeah.

And I went, oh, no. And I went back to university to get my PhD because I was avoiding, that's one of the imposter syndrome behaviors, I was avoiding the leadership role, something that I thought that I'd fail at. Now, I didn't recognize this as imposter syndrome at all. This was, you know, I just told myself, oh, management, that sounds boring. But it also can be, you know, as now I know, leadership can be a wonderful, fantastic,

exhilarating thing to do. Definitely not boring. But I didn't recognize it. And that's what most people experience with imposter syndrome is they don't recognize it for what it is because people see the symptoms. They don't see the root cause of it. And I certainly didn't see that avoiding that particular career path was imposter syndrome. I only noticed it decades later. There you go. And you have on your website too, if people are sitting in the audience and they're like, what if I have imposter syndrome? And then your imposter is like, I wonder if I have imposter syndrome. And then your other, this is like my personalities. So you have a chance to get a full report on your website.

And so I took your imposter syndrome test today. Oh, you did? Fantastic. Yeah, I did. I thought it was funny. I scored a 22% and it said I have malignant, what did it say? I had malignant Machiavellianism and dark triad traits and i i said well that sounds about right uh you know i mean some of the questions i wanted to say uh that i i didn't

really feel but i couldn't lie i mean there are times where you you know you question stuff if you start a task you're like this could suck and fail but you know i kind of learned that if i work hard and a little bit of luck and, you know, fumble through stuff enough to the, you know, one of my big things is if it's hard and challenging, you know, chew the elephant, you know, one bite at a time, you just, you just sit down and go, all right, let's just take this thing apart one bite at a time and, you know, working hard and, and, uh, put you in a position for luck. And so I've just kind of learned that, you know, I, my laziness is my biggest problem in life and so i don't know if i work hard but i

seem to have done pretty good with it um other than you know it told me i was machiavellian no i'm just making it does not say that i should clarify that it's very nice so so you've got you're in the lowest category for people with imposter syndrome yeah so i've you know a range of you know four yeah so i was going to take this up as a new hobby so um but but one of the things about it is that you know a lot there's one myth right one of the misconceptions out there that is that imposter syndrome is something that happens when you're learning something new, when you're a beginner. And the reason is because it's difficult. You know, learning's hard. It's uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable. And, you know, we don't like it.

We just have to push through it and then gradually learn some more and get more comfortable. And because imposter syndrome, that self-doubt is also uncomfortable. There's many people who think it's the same thing, but it's not. Oh, it's not self-doubt then? Well, it is self-doubt. Oh, it is? It's not the discomfort of being a beginner. It's not the learning thing. So you'll see some influencers talking about it and they'll say, hey, you know, you've just got to practice more.

And it's like, actually, no, imposter syndrome strikes when you're capable, you're competent, you've done a million shows. And yet you still feel doubt you still feel why would you know Meryl Streep after 75 movies she thinks why would anyone come and want to watch me in a movie sometimes I think about that with the show but you know I mean sometimes you you look at the show and I guess this wouldn't be imposter syndrome but sometimes you'll have a bad show and you're like I wasn't 100% on that show it could have been funnier i missed some timing points and some cues and i missed some jokes and you know sometimes that is because i am tired uh and i'm not feeling at the par but uh or getting enough sleep usually this last week

but uh um you know you just kind of go hey you know do better next time you know you know if you have that sort of insight but i guess that's not really imposter syndrome that's that's just realizing you know you made a stupid mistake yeah it's it's not it's not being perfect um a lot of imposter syndrome is related to the expectation that you should should be perfect that's one of the symptoms um and so that means that if you had a bad show then with imposter syndrome you might lie awake all night afterwards fretting about it beating yourself up saying oh this just proves that i don't belong on a radio show i i should you know go off and you know cut trees for a living or something like that. Do you find my summation by my rough-edged polling is that women suffer this more than men?

Is that true? That's actually another myth. But it has a basis. Like the original research back in 1978 was done on graduate women, and it seemed to show that women experienced it more than men. And then for 15 to 20 years after that, further research seemed to reinforce that. But then in the 90s, there was some research done where they made the survey absolutely confidential, totally anonymous. And then the numbers came out equal. So what all these other

surveys had captured was a cultural trend where men are not allowed or won't allow themselves or not willing to express what they consider to be a weakness. So it's a cultural thing. So it's a cultural artifact that they found but actually men and women experience it equally and when you get to the root cause of it you'll see also that there's no gender difference at all that's interesting to me maybe it's just because i see more women talking about it i mean my polling comes off of i see more women talking about imposter syndrome online in posts in all my things i always equated it to you know women's women's social value and community value is is higher of a concern for them their

value their pr of how they're present how they present in the world what people's opinions are of them or uh as men especially alpha males we just don't give a fuck about what anybody's opinions of us which is probably the narcissism and the dark triad and the and the Machiavellianism your uh thing accused me of um and so I just always equated that but you know like I say um as men we don't go to the doctors we don't go to the psychotherapist we just wait until I don't know an appendage falls off and then we're like yeah well damn it uh and then we and then we glue that back on and go for a while then and you know that's why we always die early i guess so i just always kind of figured it was more women because i see more women talk about it maybe they're just more

self-reflected or they they talk about in their communities so they can help each other well i think it there is part part of it is that but the other part of it is there are studies that, you know, targeting women say, hey, women, do you suffer from imposter syndrome? And, you know, that is so damaging, right? Because if a woman thinks that it's a woman's thing, it feels like there's something fundamentally wrong with being a woman. And then if a man is experiencing imposter syndrome, what they think is then a women's issue, then they feel even more isolated, even more like they don't belong. And so everybody loses. But with my clients are executives, two thirds of them are men, one third women. And that's about the ratio of men and women at the executive level, right?

Which just shows that it's another way that it's equal. That's interesting. Well, I guess women just have more self-awareness than us men when it comes down to it and can talk about it. Maybe it's the fact that we can't talk about it, we don't, we just bury everything in our stoicism. So there's 10 imposter syndrome behaviors. Do you want to tease those out and tell us what some of those are? Yeah. So I'll start slightly higher if that's okay. So there's three types of symptoms.

There's imposter syndrome thinking, like, who am I to do this? I just got lucky. I'm not good enough. Then there's the physiological stress going into fight, flight, and freeze and the body's reaction that causes people then to do the imposter syndrome behaviors like their coping mechanisms so there are there are two kinds one is hiding to try and get yourself out of the spotlight so that includes things like procrastinating not not not speaking up enough when you should and when you can um avoiding

opportunities like i did with that uh role and i went with my phd instead deflecting praise right to say oh no it was just good timing oh it was my team something like that and and keeping it a secret so that's the heightened behaviors right um and then the the other start is striving striving behaviors and that's where you've got this idea that i must be good enough i don't feel good enough therefore i must make myself good enough so that's the perfectionism comparing over preparing uh feeling like you never have enough qualification so always getting one more hoping the next one's going to prove that you put enough and you know you just collect more and then finally just pushing through just just trying to shut down all this all this feeling all

the stress all this nagging in your ear that you're not good enough and just try and drive through it and that is where you start to lead to burnout. There you go. Burnout is not good. No, no, it's very serious and has been linked to suicidal thoughts in the extreme, but more usually it leads to people ending their careers. Yeah, there you go.

So it's serious, yeah. Being unhappy and miserable. Yeah, exactly. So imposter syndrome isn't all of these. Everyone has a unique profile, if you like. Okay. A combination of, so yeah. Some might be more pronounced than others.

Right, right. Huh. There you go. So when people suffer through these things, I guess the first step is becoming aware of what imposter syndrome is. The first step is knowing you have a problem as they say in AA, um, and, uh, and then seeking help for it.

And so people can do that through your books, through your coaching and stuff like that. Um, what are some of the detriments that you see that people do in their lives or uh you know how does it drag down people's lives and some examples you've seen where it's really impacted people's lives and they didn't realize how much destruction it was bringing yeah you can you can see it with a pattern of um say over preparing right so that's that's where you know you've got something like this big presentation coming up you get more stress than it okay although you've nailed every other big presentation that you've done right so your past doesn't prove it to yourself that it's going to be good enough so you worry about it and you do far more work than it requires to prepare for it.

Now, the problem with that, then, it just takes up more of your time. You know, you're distracted and you're stressed. You're stressed and you can't think properly. You know, studies done at Princeton University shows that when you're highly stressed, you actually lose 13 IQ points. Like, it's a huge gap. Wow. And I'm already down 13 IQ points as it is. So there's that.

Who has 13 points to spare? I certainly don't. I think I only had 13 to start with before I sucked on those lead paint chips as a kid when I was shaving off the garage from my grandfather. So there you go. Now, has it come down to self-worth is self-worth a factor in here of of having a good self-esteem a self-value a self-worth self self-accountability self-actualization things like that or it's it's getting in that direction it's not low self-esteem and it's not

low confidence that's another one of one of the. If it was low self-esteem or low confidence, it would affect every area of your life, right? So it would show up. And people who are high achievers tend to have achieved. They've done stuff. They're capable of doing great things. So it's not that. But the root cause of it is a belief that your worth is not low but your belief that your

worth is conditional that it depends on what you do so if you do something well you you're as a person are good if you do something poorly you as a person are bad see i see it i i guess i look at from a different angle where if i see if i do something bad maybe i didn't work hard enough they would and i see it i see it assigned to the task because i'm not going to take responsibility for it being my fault uh but no that's why you that's why you scored low on the on the test that's why i got the machiavellian score there it's it's it's because what we do is we combine our worth with our actions. Now, so if after, say you've got a show that totally bombed,

obviously not this one because you're on fire today, but one totally bombed, and you would do the analysis of it. So you'd reflect on it. You'd say, oh, maybe I was tired. Maybe we had problems with the audio or this kind of thing. thing i just blame the guest usually you can blame the guest yes all of that but you don't make you don't mean it make it about you like maybe i'm not good enough maybe i shouldn't be doing this maybe i should you know go and be a tree surgeon just just quit the podcast after 15 years screw this i have no idea what i'm doing

clearly it's not working yeah i've seen some podcasters that need to do that but they're not this far along so there's that um yeah and so this is a really big deal i'm really amazed at how many people really struggle with this but yeah you know there's a there's, I mean, it's an interesting world and, uh, you know, people seem to be suffering from more and more issues. And, um, now you have a thing where you talk about spotting imposter syndrome and others, and why is it important to spot that? And, uh, you know, say I'm going into business with them or I'm trying to do maybe a deal or something or some sort of relationship deal where, you know, vendor supplier thing, why is it important to notice people who might be suffering from imposter

syndrome? And what should, is, is there something I should be aware of like maybe we shouldn't do business with these people? Yeah. Well, you know, the, the psychology researchers agree with that. They say, you know, the psychology researchers agree with that. They say, you know, when imposter syndrome first was discovered or uncovered, if you like, it's like, okay, what personality traits? How can we tell if someone has imposter syndrome? You know, and they spent decades trying to find the personality trait that is linked to it.

And they can't find one. It's virtually impossible to spot imposter syndrome in someone else because people want to keep it in a secret. It's an internal dialogue. So outside, there might be someone who, you know, they've just done this presentation, given a speech, and they look fantastic. And they look relaxed and competent. They they're fluent everything's smooth and you just don't see what's going on internally for them and how much they're judging themselves berating themselves doubting themselves and how exhausting that is so you really can't spot it unless someone says it and you know a lot of my clients when they've talked about it after they've been through the program they've told mentioned it to other people and usually people will say oh i had no

idea i would not i would swear that you didn't you always seem so confident and that and that's the thing and that's why yeah it's why you can't filter for it, really. There you go. I think the one time I felt the most imposter syndrome experience, and I was ready to throw it on the mic and walk off the stage. I was speaking at a trucking convention for truckers in Kansas City, I think it was. And no one had told me that well i'll i'll play the story this way um so i was i was on stage and the first two rows uh i had a a lot of comedy loosening up with the show to do at the beginning you know to get everybody loosened up and uh so i started you know doing whatever the joke says i had some local jokes and stuff

and uh the front row was looking at me like i was dead panning like i was dying hard you know as they say in comedy and uh they weren't laughing and they were just looking at me like i was a freak they're just like looking at me like just like nothing i couldn't get any of the front rows to respond to me in any way in fact if anything they just they just look kind of like me and then turn look at each other and start talking to each other i'm like holy crap i'm losing the room and uh and i just got started and uh i was i was screaming in my brain throw down the mic walk off this isn't somehow you fail as a speaker. This is not for you. You're not funny. You know, I really started going into a tailspin and I, and usually in that case,

as a comedian, you'll start trying to work them and you'll start focusing on them. And I did, and that threw me even further off. Cause you know, you're trying to give a speech. You're not trying to stand up and I couldn't get anybody to respond or jive with me i mean i was getting to the point where i was going to start picking people out and start doing a an improv and start where'd you get that shirt from um you know that's all sort of bit and it was just screaming my head and so i half happened just finished the podcast uh fortunately uh some people have some great questions in the back and i just said f these people on the front row george carlin had a bit where he says if you got a show that's funny and everywhere you go it's funny but you go to i don't know georgia

somewhere in the backwoods of georgia and they don't think it's funny screw those people they just don't get it and so that's kind of the conclusion i came to was a horrible speech i gave and it was just a rambling mess threw everything off i came off the stage and i went to the back of the room and i said to the people back there that came out to me like that was that was great it was great yeah i said what the fuck is going on with the front rows and they go oh that's the deaf coalition of the truckers they're all deaf didn't you see the signer on the on the side of the stage i'm like yeah i kind of saw that but i know you guys are recording this for a video so i thought it was for you know people bought the

video and and that's that that was another lesson i learned is is if you're going to go speak some place go spend some time to read the room and before you get on stage and so they were deaf they didn't understand what i was saying they weren't getting any of my jokes and uh and here i was ready to quit but that was probably the worst imposter syndrome i literally was ready to throw on the mic and quit speaking forever and walk up the stage and uh quit yeah yeah yeah what an experience oh my gosh but it but it's because you made it then the translation in your head was this must be me yeah i thought it was me yeah i'm like i suck at this i'm not funny people have been placating me this whole time to go like oh clap for idiot boy he's not he thinks he's funny he's cute um yeah i was i just

i i don't think i've ever died ever that hard anywhere and uh the more i focused on that front row the more i was just sucked into a black hole of illusion because they you know they just weren't getting it and uh and uh so anyway that was that was my imposter syndrome experience. But you did hear that bit at the end where these guys came up to you and said, the ones who could hear it, oh, that was great. Yeah, they liked it. And I was like, that sucked. That was like the worst. Exactly.

So the only place that your show bombed was in your head. Everyone else who could hear it thought it was great. Yeah. It was good that I didn't give up. And that's the thing. So there you go. maybe that's a lesson that you teach and telling people if you feel you're in that moment of being overwhelmed with imposter syndrome don't give up just keep pushing through maybe uh you could do it depends you know because pushing through can be one of the um yeah uh defensive behaviors for it so yeah it's well it's more it's separating out separating out your actions from your worth there you go at that point you

are blending it with i must i i'm not getting a response therefore i suck rather than i'm not getting a response gee this is weird i've done this so many times yeah well how strange i'm just going to talk to the people in the back if you know yeah i finally just thankfully said screw these people and people i started noticing people in the back were responding to me and i i responded i realized folks yeah as a comedian the you notice the people in the room that aren't laughing and and you tune into them, and it becomes like a game in your head to make them laugh, and it starts to really mess with your head. Because, you know, in the meanwhile, the whole room is probably laughing, and they're having a good time, and you're just like trying to figure out why Joe Bob there up front has no comedy. So there you go. One of the things you

talk about too is some people try affirmations, I guess. Affirmations to deal with imposter syndrome. I guess they're like that bit that What's-His-Face used to do on SNL where he sat in front of the mirror and went

people like me. That's the Alen bit um how come affirmations don't work for this sort of thing yeah so affirmations affirmations have got um what we would say here in the uk is a marmite thing you either love it or you hate it right and so you love affirmations because affirmations have have this reputation right of a person who who's broken you know can't pay his rent sitting in the mirror saying i am a millionaire i am a millionaire i'm not going out and doing anything about it except trying to convince himself that he's a millionaire that's the the bad reputation that affirmations have.

Affirmations work with a particular part of the brain, and that part of the brain is the part that notices information and kind of plays it back to you. So if you were going to, say, if you were going to buy a new car, what car, if your dream car, what would your next car be? For me, it would be a Porscheorsche that's a that's on the agenda porsche lovely what color uh you know i don't really know something that the something that the chicks like i'm a single guy at 55 i've had three bmws and i love bmws with all my heart and soul but it's time for something different but But, you know, I don't know, red hot maybe?

It's probably going to have to be the hot red. There you go. Whatever the chicks dig. Whatever the chicks are like, yeah, that's what I do. So you start shopping for your Porsche, right? And you start paying attention. You look at the specs. You go for a test drive.

And all that time that you're putting that attention on it you're telling your brain hey this is important right this is this is important to me and what your brain will do the certain part of your brain called the reticular activating system for people who know the brain um what your brain will do is is then start pointing it out to you so what you'll find is you suddenly see more porsches and you'll suddenly see more red Porsches as well. Not because they're suddenly more on the road, but because your brain's now paying attention to it. So that is how the brain is supposed to work, right? So, you know, say you're starving and walking along in a rainforest and you spot an

edible plant, that's your brain saying, hey, of all the billions of bits of information, that's an edible plant. That's important. So that's how affirmations are supposed to work. They don't work if they're not true. Here, back to the millionaire thing, right? They won't work because your brain's got this model of how the world works right and it trusts it like this has kept you alive so far it's really fundamental and if you try to tell it something it doesn't believe it's just going to go no so if you tell it something that is um that you do believe like your values you can focus on your values do affirmations and then your brain will point out those things about those values. And so you'll be more authentic, right? So that's

how they can do. Now, come to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is this deep level belief, the root cause of it is deep level belief that your worth depends on what you do, your worth is conditional. And so if you stand in the mirror and you tell yourself, I am enough, right, I am good enough, your brain's going to go, oh, no, you're not. Because it doesn't fit to the model of the world, right? So to change that belief, you have to then go through a very specific process to change the way that your brain

interprets that that particular thing and that's then we're going deep into the science of how to change a belief a deep-seated belief there you go and that leads me into my my other question i had for you um you know the affirmations element of trying to do it you know we see kind of in this culture lately of this fake it till you make it thing i don't know if you guys have that over on that side over here it's everywhere especially in social media you know there's lots of uh fomo what they call fomo fear of missing out and so people fake it till they make it like we'll see these uh uh these people on instagram and social media they'll they'll you know they'll go rent a car for a day, like a Ferrari, and get some expensive jewelry on loan and then take pictures to pretend like that's their life.

They actually have places in LA where you can go to a studio set that has a private plane fuselage cutout. It's just a piece of it. And it looks like you're sitting on the private plane it's got like the windows and meanwhile the rest of it's a studio and you know it's got the champagne and you're like we're we're playing on the thing we're living the life but they call it the fake it till you make it sort of mentality and it sounds like that might fall in the same failure field as what happens when you try and use affirmations yeah yeah so the so the first point about imposter syndrome it's not about

being an actual imposter so it's not it's not sitting in a fake plane and trying to pretend right those are the real imposters i've seen those photos actually oh gosh my my mind has just been blown all those all. I thought it was genuine. So that's not try to fake it. The fake it till you make it is usually what's told to people when they're on a learning path, right? So we're going back to this being a beginner, right? You're in a learning environment, so just try. It's more of a just try it. Just just don't don't don't give up because

you haven't got it perfect you know the first time everybody's got to learn i think that's the healthy way for fake it till you make it fake it till you make it for imposter syndrome is really bad advice really really bad advice because people already feel like they're a fraud right so the advice that now now now take now take that inner feeling and now deliberately make yourself a fraud self-fulfilling prophecy right there well yeah but that'll just ramp up the stress so you know you'll get sleepless nights you'll get anxiety anxiety, you'll get overwhelmed. Your body will more easily go into fight, flight, and freeze states. Your nervous system will respond like that as if it's an emergency. And that's when you lose your 13 points of your IQ because literally the blood gets taken away from the front part of your brain and sent to your muscles.

Oh, wow. Because you're in fight or flight mode that explains it it's it's enabling your muscles so they can fight fight and 13 iq points that was all i had left going for me so once i lose that man the tank's empty um so what are some ways you can maybe tease out uh to have people get rid or assist themselves in regulating their imposter syndrome. Obviously, people need to order the book up from amazon.com or work with you as a coach, but can you tease out a little bit to us? Yeah, so there's two things you can do with that. First, you can either try and manage it, right, or you can get rid of it. So to manage it, the easiest place to start is with your nervous system. So let's claim back those 13 points of IQ, right? So that is doing things that will get you calm.

So there are exercises that you can do, like shaking out your muscles to get the stress hormones out of your bloodstream quickly then some deep breathing um and then there's all sorts of exercises you know they're personalized so it's what fits you but um anything that you can do um try and get rid of any external stresses as much as you can right anything that's You know, if you've got a belief that you've just done this very long week and you have to mow the lawn this Sunday and you hate it and it's just, you know, go find a boy scout and get them to mow your lawn, right?

Little things like that just to take down the stress, which is about getting support from those around you, basically. So that's the easiest thing to do. When you're less stressed, then you're less likely to do the coping behaviors that we talked about, the procrastination, the perfectionism, the over-preparing. So that's at its most basic level. And I go through the things that you can do for all of that

at the front part of my book. And then the second thing that you can do is to eliminate it completely. Now, to eliminate it, it's not about those three symptoms. It's about getting to the root cause of it. And that means a very specific process that you do to change the belief that your worth is conditional. So that's what we do in my program, which we change your conditional worth, where your actions and you are combined, and we separate them out and give you unconditional worth.

And then this is like freedom, because you're not reactive, you're not taking things personally, you're confident, you have effortless confidence, you forget to doubt yourself. confidence, you forget to doubt yourself, right? And when you forget to doubt yourself, you know, your worth, then you can be an adventurer, then you can, you know, take more positive risks, right? Because you're not, you haven't got this second track voice playing in your head saying, oh,

don't know about that, you shouldn't do that there you go well some good tips and stuff to do and of course people can go to your website and they can take your test and uh they'll probably get a higher score than me uh but uh i think i should say so yeah you said i was like 78 i think of people suffer from this, right? So 70% is the conservative, what the research has done. Other research has shown it's up to 82%. When we look at the root cause of imposter syndrome, that conditional worth, that actually affects a lot more people, like 99.999% of people. Wow. more people like 99.999 percent of people and that belief you know is is so prevalent in everywhere

in our society in our psyches but when we um when we get to become high achievers it shows up as imposter syndrome so you know the the the other 30 percent can be people who unwittingly are managing it quite well, you know, or completely oblivious to it. Or, or there are the, exactly. Or there are the 4% of,

you know, high achievers who are, you know, clinical diagnosis of psychopath or sociopath. Which is probably me. All right, then, there you go. And if you can overcome imposter syndrome, you can get effortless self-confidence, authenticity,

calm, and feeling in control. You know, when you feel you're authentic and you're an authentic self and you know your shtick, you know your stuff, it's nice. It feels pretty good. And then I just walk around and tell everyone else they're dumber than i am no i don't do that people that's just a joke uh that's that's probably the sociopath in me um a vibrant energy focus and productivity and finally feeling good enough all right so this has been fun and hopefully we've helped some people final thoughts

as we go out so i think the final thoughts is this isn't you. Imposter syndrome is not who you are. It's not your personality. You're not alone and you can do something about it. So there's hope. There's hope. And the best hope you can take and get is to go to Tara's website.

Tara, give us your.com so we can find you on the interwebs. It's outsmartimpostorsyndrome.com. There you go. And you can order her book, Outsmart Impostor Syndrome and the Suffering. Free your mind. Claim your inner success.

And it's out tomorrow on September 14th, 2023. And if you're feeling even more frisky, get her previous book. It's called Unmasking. I was trying to flip to the Amazon as I was talking there. Unmasking the Coach's Guide to Imposter Syndrome. So there's that as well. Thank you very much for coming on the show, Tara. We really appreciate it. It's an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Chris. There you go. And hopefully we solved some riddles. And then of course, people can reach out to you for private coaching and all that. They can contact you at your website.

Yeah. There you go. Thanks, my honest, for tuning in because without you guys, we couldn't do it. And even though some of you might also have imposter syndrome out there, tell them to listen to the show and sign up to the subscription as well. Go to goodreads.com for it says Chris Voss. YouTube.com for it says well go to good reason.com for it says christmas youtube.com for it says christmas linkedin.com for it says christmas and christmas one on that tickety talky that the kids are always talking about over there that's not what it's called

they don't say that but i don't know i like saying it thanks for tuning in be good to each other stay safe and we'll see you guys next time and that should