In today’s new video, I want to help you with something that seems to needlessly plague so many entrepreneurs.
Have you ever stopped yourself because you felt like an imposter, like a fraud?
I talk to so many women who are looking to grow their businesses and their income, and they have a hard time putting themselves out there because they don’t feel like they know enough. They don’t feel like they’ve accomplished enough. They don’t feel like they’re enough of an expert.
So they don’t want to get out there and grow their visibility because they will be “found out”… for not being “enough”.
It’s insidious! I see this almost everywhere and I hope you’ll take a few moments to watch this… I believe it will help shed some light on how to get past this fraud factor, or imposter syndrome.
First and foremost, I experienced this in my early career too, when I had just five clients.
I was a client attraction coach and people would ask, “How many clients do you have?” And I felt so guilty saying, “I have five clients.”
I was trying to measure myself up against the lifelong experts in the field. Inevitably, I fell short of confidence.
What I quickly learned, and this helped me move past that imposter feeling many years ago (even now, when I’m ready for my next level), is that, if you call a spade a spade, and if you speak vulnerably about where you are on your journey, people will totally understand it.
This is literally about shedding a light onto the situation and just calling it what it is.
So how I answered that (once I got the learning) was, “Yes, I have five clients.”
(By the way, they don’t know how many five clients is. Is that a lot or not a lot?)
I was able to be OK with not being the expert but still getting clients because, if asked, I would also say, “The thing is, I may not be an expert, but I know more than the majority of people about attracting clients. I filled my first practice in nutrition to a full capacity of 30 clients in just 8 months. If you were to stop anybody in Times Square in Manhattan and ask them how to fill a practice or how to get clients, I would know more than 98% of the people there. So yes, I may not have a full practice yet, but I’m on my way there. And the good news is, I’m in the trenches with you, albeit a few steps ahead and everytime something works for me, I pass it on to you.”
That’s the mindset that got me to stop feeling like an impostor or a fraud.
By naming it and by sharing with people that “I may not be the expert of all experts but I know more than you and everything I learned I’m going to pass on to you,” it really helped me feel better and gave me more confidence.
It wasn’t so much that the people who were actually asking. Only one did.
It was about how I felt.
And once I became okay with not being the expert, then I could put myself out there and talk to people without feeling guilty or without feeling like I would be found out.
People really appreciated my honesty and the fact that we were walking this journey together.
You don’t have to feel like an impostor, just call it what it is and tell people you’re perhaps a few steps ahead of them and they will be happy that you spoke the truth.
Perhaps this can help you today. Perhaps it can help somebody that you know.
Sending you lots of love. xo
