Ep 74 - Overcoming "Imposter Syndrome"

How do you overcome "Imposter Syndrome" and create authentic content if you're starting from scratch or entering new territory?

Struggling with self-doubt when it comes to posting content? You’re not alone. Aaron shares his journey with imposter syndrome and how to break through it.

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In this episode of the Content Marketing Podcast:

• Why imposter syndrome shows up when you start creating content.
• Aaron’s personal story of feeling like an imposter on Grant Cardone’s podcast.
• The power of “calling yourself out” to eliminate fear.
• Why leading from where you live helps you stay authentic.
• How to shift the focus from self-doubt to serving your audience.
• Building habits that make content creation feel effortless.

AND much more.

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Transcript

So if you speak to things from a place of experience, experiential, Hey, here's what I've done and here's what happened on that journey and what worked for me and what didn't work, or here's what I'm doing right now, here's what I'm implementing. You're leading from where you live and you can't get called out when you do that because that's reality and that's fact. Even if I get trolled or someone says something online when I'm sharing from where I live, things that I'm actively doing, I know it's authentic. I know I have the results. I know I'm showing up in these areas so it doesn't sting. It still hurts a little bit. When someone tells you to go f yourself. 

How do I help people overcome imposter syndrome? A great question posted by Patrick Locke in our school community. So thank you, Patrick. The reality is every time you step into a territory that's new, that's out of your comfort zone, imposter syndrome tends to show up and it can be very confronting. And this particularly happens when people go to post content online for the first time and put themselves on video. They're visible, they can get exposed, they can get called out. And the same thought cycle goes through your head. Who's going to listen to me? Who am I to talk about this? And that's very common, and I have so many people reach out to our agency going, yes, I've got to get on social media, I've got to do content. And then when push comes to shove and it's time to pull the trigger, they retreat 12 months later, they still haven't moved forward. 

So I'm going to share some ideas that I help clients with when it comes to imposter syndrome. And I'll start by sharing my own story with it because I grapple with it just like everyone else. But there was a period in 2015 where I got a show called Aussie Closes with my business partner at the time, grant Jack Murray, not Grant Cardone. I'm Grant Cardone tv. And I found myself sitting in Grant's Miami Studio on power plays, which was Grant's podcast. And there's no way that I was a power player at that point in my business career. So I felt like the biggest imposter, and you'll see a very inauthentic version of me doing content at that time because I was really trying to be Grant rather than trying to be Aaron. And it shows so I can watch a period of my life where I guess I was imposing and I was an imposter, but I'm still proud of myself for putting myself out there and willing to get exposed. 

But I obviously felt the imposter syndrome because we pulled the pin on it, I think 13 or 14 episodes into Aussie closes and retreated and went very quiet for a while there. So I've grappled with it. And when I first went to podcasts, I had similar experiences and I've done over a hundred episodes between the content marketing and Build Your Personal Brand podcasts and 50 and a hundred between that Mark Guest appearances. But what I did on the very first episode, which is the first strategy that I'm going to recommend if you haven't put yourself out there online, the first piece of content that you can do is what I call a call out piece of content. But who you're calling out is yourself. So you're exposing yourself. And if you want a great example of this, go back to the very first episode. At the time it was called the Marketing Business Wealth podcast. 

It's now the content marketing podcast. I'll post it below and you'll see what I did. I basically called myself out. Hey, I used to binge drink to deal with my anxiety and stress. I was a closet, I guess you'd call it an alcoholic. And that's how I would sedate and manage what was not going right in my life. Here's all my business lessons and errors and mistakes that I made, not paying tax business products and services that completely failed and flocked when I wiped myself out with three or four terrible back-to-back investment decisions and went broke and racked up insane credit card debts. So I shared everything that I wanted to put out there. So I was calling myself out first, so no one else could do it. So by exposing yourself, be vulnerable, be authentic because people can connect because they've messed up. If we go through people's lives and we look at what they've done and we go to the skeletons in the closet, they're there. 

So why not just put them out on the table and free yourself from that burden? The second thing that I would encourage someone to do as us helping them to overcome imposter syndrome is lead from where they live. And what I mean is only talk about things that you're actively doing, your time in the trenches on the field, doing the work, don't speak about things you do not have results in yet. You'll see examples of where people probably not intending to be imposters, they get very excited. So they end up talking about, let's say crypto as an example. There's a boom, there's all these alt coins and they're going up in value. And all of a sudden, kids in their twenties that have put a few hundred dollars in are jumping from the ceilings and mountaintops telling everyone in their network, you've got to buy crypto. 

Be a crypto investor. When ultimately they're gambling, they don't know when they're going to get out. It's all unrealized profit on paper. Chances are most people are not going to be successful with that sort of strategy. So when it's gambling and a coin toss, it doesn't usually work out. But what happens is people get really excited. They've got new information, they see new possibility, they start screaming about it from the mountaintops, but do they really have the results and time? Not really. So if you speak to things from a place of experience, experiential, Hey, here's what I've done and here's what happened on that journey and what worked for me and what didn't work, or here's what I'm doing right now, here's what I'm implementing. You're leading from where you live and you can't get called out when you do that because that's reality and that's fact. 

And I've found that even if I get trolled or someone says something online when I'm sharing from where I live, things that I'm actively doing, I know it's authentic. I know I have the results, I know I'm showing up in these areas so it doesn't sting. It still hurts a little bit when someone tells you to go F yourself or whatever it is, or makes a comment about your physical appearance, but it just doesn't hit hard or stay with me very long. However, if I was being inauthentic, I was talking about something that I didn't have experience with and someone called me out, then I think it would hurt a lot and it would occupy my mind because I know that they're right and there's some truth in it. So lead from where you live is the second tip. Talk about your lane of genius. 

And then if you do go outside that and you talk about results or areas that you may not have produced in yet, make sure you credit source. Where did you get the information from? I stepped out of that myself this week in that podcast episode. I was sharing some information I got from Dan Priestley and forgot to credit him about the movement towards podcast episodes and CEOs going on long form shows like Joe Rogan now to help build the business because people are getting fed up with the short form agenda and not getting the full story. They want to hear everything from the person so they can make up their mind with all the information which we saw in the US election. So sorry, Dan Priestley. So crediting source is the next step. And then finally, you have to get on the field. You'll get more confident as you go. 

It's like going for a run. If you're unfit and you hit the pavement, you're probably only going to get a few hundred metres before it hurts. You've run out of breath and it sucks. You have to go for another run. Next time you get a little bit further, you'll feel a little bit better. And all of a sudden you start build this conditioning to the activity. So for me, when it comes to imposter syndrome, I focus on the activity. What do I need to do? And what's the vision? And the vision is tied to helping people and helping make their lives better. So I remove it from me. So it's not about me judging myself, my own lack of self worth, my own limiting beliefs. If I show up and I share this message, if I put this information online, who can it help? How many people can it help? 

How will it change their lives? And even if only two or three people hear it early on, imagine what impact it could have on their lives with this new knowledge that has really helped you. So all of a sudden you flip it from being about you and your own insecurities, fear and imposter syndrome, doubt into who can I help? Who can I serve? And I think that's really important step. So it's no longer about you, it's about who you're helping. And then just like if you keep going to the gym, when you're on the field and you keep doing the activity, what you do is you build a habit. So the fear starts to dissipate and gets overridden with this automatic behaviour. So for me, creating content now is something that I just do. I don't really think about it. And yes, are there topics and subjects that I don't broach because of imposter syndrome? 

Absolutely. But just like with my running, I've been running consistently now for five and a half years every single week I don't think about running. I just do it. And you need to get yourself to the place where you're doing the activities in your business, in your life that will compound into success. And once you build habits, those automatic behaviours, you don't have to think about them, you don't get as fearful about them, you don't get excited about them, you just do them because that's your day, that's your routine, that's your rituals, and that's the next thing I'd say. So if you combine those elements, one, calling yourself out, I think that's a really, really good place to start. Put it all out in the line. Two, lead from where you live. Talk about things that you actually have experience with. Number three, if you step outside results that you've achieved, make sure you credit source where you got that information from. 

Number four, get on the field, start doing the activity. And then also number five, I think I got that order around wrong. Make it about the people you're here to serve, make it about them and not about you. If you can bind those elements, you should be able to override imposter syndrome and just know that very normal to feel that way. And one of the things that we do help our clients with is the mindset and the psychology. And we train them around that because it's about the people they can help, whose lives can you change? What will it do for your company, your employees, your family, your business legacy, all the customers and clients and families that you help. And that's just a very different lens to look at it. I'll add that when it comes to creating authentic content that is the best representation of who you are, the 30 days and 30 minutes content creation system is perfect for video because the interview style that's very conversational. 

It's like you're having a coffee or a chat with a friend over FaceTime. So you're pulling out the answers from within. You're not looking at a script using a teleprompter, which can look forced and feel very unnatural. You get this beautiful content, you're in your lane of expertise answering questions that you target clients are asking online, and you just choose the content that you want to use in that process. And it's just a 30 minutes relaxed conversation with someone once a month to get all your video and written posts done. That's also original and not some duplicate from AI or chat GPT. So go check out that training. It's really, really powerful for authentic content. So if you're grappling with it, by all means reach out. I'd love to help you. My name's Aaron Whitney. You can find me on social. And if this episode was helpful, you can jump in our school community, take it further. Go to content only au and leave a five star review on the platform you're listening on so you can help more people discover the show.