Episode 34:Impostor Syndrome
You’re incompetent and don’t deserve to be a consultant. Except you’re great. How do you resolve that?
Summary
This episode is about imposter syndrome and the habit of talking yourself out of opportunities before anyone else gets a chance to say no. Nick and Kai work through their own histories of self-disqualification, from passing up speaking gigs and school programs to three consecutive Burning Man no-shows. The fix they land on: show up anyway, skip waiting for an invitation, and see what happens.
Highlights
- Kai frames the ‘are we qualified?’ question through Magic: The Gathering’s top-down vs. bottom-up design models. Either way, you’re figuring things out as you go. The design philosophy doesn’t change whether you’re qualified.
- Job postings and calls for entry are written to filter out weak applicants, not to set a real bar. Kai’s point: show up halfway competent and the response is almost always ‘we’d love to have you.’
- Nick notes that people will find any reasonable-sounding reason to leave an opportunity, and those reasons are emotional, not logical. His line: you don’t build $350K in annual revenue finding every reason to walk away.
- Kai identifies ‘monkey mind,’ a Buddhist concept, as the engine behind imposter syndrome. It’s a voice you can’t eliminate, but you can observe it, name it, and choose not to act on it.
- Kai helped a friend get a $25,000/year raise by working through salary negotiation with her. The employer wasn’t the obstacle. The internal reluctance to make the ask was.
- Kai’s friendship with Nick started when Kai began replying to Nick’s newsletter, escalated to a 2,000-word reply to one essay, and earned a Skype invite back. None of it would have happened if Kai had waited to be invited in.
- Kai points out that self-disqualification often hits before an opportunity is even offered. You don’t approach the person at all. Most of his good opportunities in the past two years came from showing up uninvited and saying he wanted to participate.
Read the transcript
Are we qualified to do this podcast? I feel like after 34 episodes, we should just drop that on everybody. Everybody just unsubscribes immediately. But, like, really, like, do you think, like, do we deserve to be doing this?
Like, so I am, as always, going to relate it somehow to a Magic the Gathering thing. So, in Magic of the Gathering, there’s different card game expansions. And there’s two different design philosophies they follow when building an expansion: there’s what they call top-down design and bottom-up design. Top-down design is where you start with a concept and then you fill it in. You’re like, okay, in this expansion, we want a card that represents a magic lamp. What would that be like? What would that represent? How would we. Demonstrate what a magic lamp is like within this setting, and you fill in the different attributes of the card that way. Bottom-up design is where you say, okay. We have a hole in the design file. We need a card that fits these criterias. Maybe it’s, you know, this rarity has this type of effect. We’re trying to build from the bottom up. And Have it thin. And when I think about whether somebody’s qualified for something, I like applying that top-down versus bottom-up philosophy. So You might be hired for a job as a consultant, and you’re filling in the pieces as you go, or you might say, oh, I’m going to construct my own thing and build Build what it looks like as I go. Either way, there’s some aspect of figuring it out as you go along, which I think is true in any type of consulting engagement you have, be it productized or not, be it one-off or not, be it your first time or not. But When it comes to are you qualified to do something? Well, are you qualified to do it like from the top-down approach? Like, hey, I understand the idea. I’m just going to fill it in as I go along. Like, what does it look like to do a podcast? You know, we could start, we could see, we could pivot, we could iterate on it. Or bottom up. Okay, we’re going to really map out what this podcast looks like. We’re going to fill in the blanks and then we’re going to launch the thing. So I don’t know, from a top-down perspective. I think we are qualified to do the podcast. You both came into it saying, This seems like a fun idea. Let’s see what it’s like. Let’s try it. Let’s test it out. We could do a couple episodes and see how it feels, change it. And we definitely have changed it in small, subtle, and sometimes drastic ways since we started. And I also think we’re qualified in the bottom up set since I mean we have a Trello board with m a dozen plus episode descriptions on here. You and I are constantly talking about like How do we build a better podcast? What’s the design philosophy for making a good podcast? And so I think, like, Off the top of my head, I’d say we are qualified to do a podcast, but there always is that thought in the back of my mind: like, why us? Why does somebody tune in to listen to us? What makes us different or unique or special? Why? Why this and not another podcast? There’s at least ten other podcasts on iTunes I hear. I’ve I have not looked.
I hear eight, actually. I think we’re the ninth podcast on iTunes. Excellent.
I’m glad to hear they’re growing.
Yeah, yeah. We’re really we’re getting big. But like this is the first podcast I’ve ever done. You’ve done a bunch of podcasts. Like what makes I mean I’ve guested on podcasts before, but that’s literally just me bloviating into a microphone. I don’t even listen to podcasts. I don’t have any on my phone. I’m going to be deleting the podcasts app when the iOS X comes out and they can let me, you know? Like. On the face of it, I shouldn’t be doing a podcast, and I shouldn’t be doing a podcast that’s listened to by how many people now? Like at least 15. And uh mom, I know you’re listening to this because you comment on these episodes of Make Money Online. I wanted to say thank you. for being our 15th listener. We’re really, really grateful for the opportunity to speak to you about running your own independent business, which is obviously something that you do. She doesn’t do. That. I look at how I took the plunge on this and decided to do it. And I’m like, by on the face of it, there’s a million reasons why I should have qualified myself out of this, right? I have no podcasting experience and I’m going on with somebody who literally gets people on podcasts for a living, right? Who knows everything about podcasting experience. And then I’m starting to make creative direction on it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve kiboshed music in the background of this stupid fucking podcast. And I love you, but like. How did I get to the point where I went from like podcast zero to podcast a little to starting to like creative direct the thing and like push back on it? Well, part of it is that I don’t feel comfortable with too many people talking about business than I do Kai Davis. So, the person in particular that I’m talking to right now, that helps a tremendous amount. If somebody way out of my league or that I perceived as out of my league was like, hey, Nick Dee, let’s start a podcast together. Let’s say Alan Weiss, Michael Beirut. That was the guy I was about to say. Michael Beirut, friendly, kind human being. I’ve shaken his hand a couple times. He would probably not recognize me in a crowd. He is a like world-class, famous designer, all this. Let’s say Michael Beirut calls up and is like, hey, Nick D, let’s start a podcast together. I would be horrified. I mean, I would love to start a podcast. Michael, if you’re listening, you are our eighth listener. You can start a podcast with me anytime. I will pick up that phone. It’ll be great. But if he did it, I would be like, oh my God, like all of a sudden I’m doing this thing with Michael Beirut. Like, do I deserve to be doing this with Michael Beirut? And there’s that D word again, deserve, right? You deserve fuck all, right? Like, you don’t deserve success with a podcast. You don’t deserve failure with the podcast. Also, let’s go down catastrophic thinking road. Let’s say Michael Bayreuth calls me, I do a podcast, and the first episode comes out, and it’s an unfettered disaster. Now, what does unfettered disaster mean? It can mean either nobody listens to it, in which case, great. Nobody listened to something, there’s no expectations. Unlikely with Michael Beirut. Probably a lot of people are going to listen to it. Let’s say I fall flat on my face and everybody’s like, well, Michael Beekroot’s great, but that Nick D guy is a complete schmo. He should get a new podcast host. Well, okay, that’s probably the worst possible case. Is that actually going to happen in practice? Do people do that? Unless you’re saying something like obviously offensive And horrifying, which you can fix in editing. And you could just tell Michael, your friend, Mike, hey, how’s it going? We can call I can call you Mike, right? Like everybody calls you Michael, but you’re Mike to me. I love you. We just need to like do a lot of approval steps on this so that I feel comfortable. Now you have to have the confidence to say that to Michael B. Root. And he’s probably going to be like, okay, great, we’ll just have a battalion of people on it because I run Pentagram. But yeah, like you, you have that pushback, and then you try and figure out ways to account for it. So the reason I’m saying this is if you feel like an imposter all the time, there are strategic and tactical ways out of it, right? So if you feel like you are a complete sham of a business owner and you feel really nervous about putting yourself out there in terms of press, Okay, great. Ask for quote approval. Ask for article approval. You know, I know somebody who didn’t ask for quote approval, and he got a hit job article written against him in Chicago’s equivalent of the Wall Street Journal a couple weeks ago. And like a lot of people were like, Really this guy that like, you know, he like drove me to my friend’s funeral and all this. Like he did all these wonderful things for me and gave me like paid time off when I’m a barista. And uh Like, really that guy? Well, yes, actually that guy. Because the way that he projects himself as a business owner is not the same as him being like a normal person. And all this. Like, you just need to make sure that you’re. Accounting for the things that you think might be a problem in a way that does not show insane amounts of weakness. Also, a very good way to show weakness is to say no to the thing and to think you don’t deserve to do it. and to get a huge amount of stage fright around it. I um gonna not name the website, but I worked for a website that did um tutorial content for an industry that’s historically underrepresented for women in minorities. And I reached out to a lot of women and I was like in this and I got them on the phone. And I was like, well, why haven’t you submitted anything yet? In a polite, kind way. I was like, you know, what’s your thinking? And a lot of it amounted to stage fright. And a lot of people of any gender, of any background, they get stage fright. White dudes who are operating with the game on easy mode get stage fright. And It is, I mean, we can veer into therapist territory pretty quickly about this, but it’s also like You have to recognize that the stage freight is there, and it’s almost like meditation. You kind of just let it pass by and then figure out what to do with it. And that’s what’s helped me a little bit. Also recognize that calls for entry for stuff, like if you’re in a write-a-guest blog post or a podcast or something, they’re probably worded horribly and in a way that excludes you.
They’re worded horribly in a way that excludes you. The criteria is artificially set very, very high to get rid of all the people who Are just terrible at applying for the thing or submitting for the thing. And so, like, it might say, like, you must have 15 years of experience writing guest articles. And really, if you show up and you’re halfway competent. They’ll be like, We’d love to work with you, please. Thank you.
And yeah, yeah. But nobody tells you that, right? Nobody tells you that in college or when you get on the field or anything like that, and you read all that qualifying language and you find every reason to leave.
You must have 34 years writing Ruby on Reels code. Okay, I guess I won’t apply to the job.
I tell you, man, you don’t make $350K of annual revenue in a business finding every reason to leave.
Right. The only person in life who could honest to God tell you that you deserve a seat at the table is yourself. And I’ve spent probably of my 30 years on the planet, 24 of them continually disqualifying myself from opportunities because, I mean, like this goes back to middle school. They invited me to the Talented and Gifted program. I disqualified myself because in my head I was like, oh gosh, no, people will like single me out and I don’t deserve this and I shouldn’t do this. And I’m like, fuck, well, I wish I was in the tag program. I was bored to hell in middle school. Why didn’t I take advantage of this? Because I convinced myself, you know, you don’t really deserve that guy. And there’s so many points in my life where I could point to making that decision where somebody said, like, we’d love you to do this thing. And I was like, I can’t because I’m going to make up a reason right now because it was too easy for me to.
Because it’s Tuesday and that’s Shabbat, right?
Yeah, I have a loaf of halal I really need to stuff in my mouth right now. And Yeah, it’s so easy for me, for the listener, for Nick, presumably. Like, it’s easy to convince yourself you don’t deserve a thing or you don’t deserve to participate in a thing, even when. The person inviting you in is like, We really, really, really want you to take part of this. I mean, even like jumping back to W Freelancing Conference U. S. last year, I was invited to speak at it. It was one of the first times I’ve given a talk. To freelancers and consultants about my discipline. And I was like, oh, no, there’s no way I could do this. Oh, holy crap. And like, I was, I was really, really scared, shitless. I was chewing valium like nothing else to get myself to the talk. And then the talk happened, and the talk was easier than I expected. And I came through the other side realizing, like, whoa, all it takes to really earn a seat at the table. Is the willingness to say, I would like a seat at the table. And the worst case scenario is somebody says, Oh, the table’s full right now, or there’s some criteria, or you might need to wait a bit. But you’ve at least started and initiated that discussion. Like, imposter syndrome for me, I discovered, is really sort of an internal fear talking, and this connects to This Buddhist philosophy of monkey mind that there’s a voice inside of your head, you know, the voice that’s always saying, like, you aren’t qualified to do this, you aren’t good enough, people are going to laugh, you look funny, and that haircut sucks. And You can never really get rid of it. It’s like a seven-year-old who’s just being a brat to you. You can never get rid of that voice, but you could learn to hear and see that voice, acknowledge the voice, and say, Thank you, Monkey Mind. I hear you. I don’t necessarily need to listen to you. And more and more, imposter syndrome or defeating imposter syndrome has been Observing it through that lens and reacting to it in that way. So instead of being like, I don’t deserve to sit here, I’m instead able to say, Well, part of my brain is saying, I don’t deserve this opportunity. Why is that? Do I really need to listen to that part of my brain? Or is that something really, really exciting? Like, uh, uh, I mean, a really personal example is Burning Man. I’ve wanted to go to Burning Man for 10 plus years. I’ve noped out of three camps over the past five years, not necessarily because of imposter syndrome, though that definitely played a part, but because of Health problems, family health problems, and I have a really exciting opportunity to go to Burning Man in uh, let’s see here, 17 days from the recording of this episode. And up until about a week ago, I was like, I’m not gonna go, I’m not gonna go, I’m not gonna go. Until all my friends were like, Listen, you’ve wanted this forever. Why do you keep selecting yourself out of this thing you really want? And the answer came down to Because I’m afraid of what if, what if, what if? And they were like, okay, what are the chances of those? What ifs happening? And I was like, pretty low. And they’re like, okay, so why are you self-selecting out? And it reached a point where I just had to stare my own imposter syndrome or my own desire to qualify myself out of something I really wanted straight in the eyes and say, This is my brain lying to me. I deserve a seat at this table. I deserve this opportunity. Why am I not acting on this opportunity? I could choose not to. But I need to choose not to with my eyes wide open, not out of fear, not because I feel like I don’t belong. And I think that idea applies wholesale to Consultants and freelancers who feel imposter syndrome. Oh, I don’t deserve to write for this thing. I’m not qualified for this. This project’s too big for me. I can’t, you know, switch my positioning to this because I don’t have enough experience yet. Well, Is that you honestly talking, or is that your monkey mind saying you should be afraid right now? Is that your lizard brain being like, there’s something scary out there? Be afraid, hide, hide, hide from the tiger. Probably the lizard brain more often than not.
People will find any good reason to qualify themselves out of something for what amount to emotional reasons, right? They’ll trot out everything. and it will look ridiculous to somebody else, yo, fuck your emotions. They don’t matter. Not when you run a business. Take the blog post opportunity, spread the word, or you’re not gonna have a seat at the table, and you’re gonna fuck yourself.
And even on top of that, every single interesting, exciting, or even, dare I say, good opportunity that’s happened to me over the last two years has come not even from being offered the opportunity and realizing I should say yes. But showing up and doing the thing and just participating, not waiting for the invitation. Like, I think imposter syndrome could even hit a stage back. Where it’s not that somebody came to you and is like, we’d love you to, you know, help with Padaka Doc. And you’re like, I can’t because reasons. But you don’t even think to approach the person to say, oh, you’re doing a thing involving Padaka Doc, I’d love to. Learn more or get involved or help or participate or whatever, you could disqualify yourself stages earlier. And so many good things have started happening when I just started showing up and being like, I want to participate in this thing. And you know what? 90% of the time when you do that, people are like, awesome. We’re so happy to have you on the team. Since maybe they’ve been having imposter syndrome, they wanted to do a podcast with Nick D, and they’re like. Nick D would never say yes. He’s so busy. He does make money online. He just bought the house in Chicago. He would never say yes to this thing. So they’ve imposter syndrome themselves out of this opportunity. But when you show up and you’re like, hey, I’d love to work together, they’re like, oh my gosh, this is wonderful. I’d love to. Yes. So it works on both stages, and imposter syndrome can hit even before the opportunity itself is presented to you. I’ve really become a fan of showing up and participating, and like not even waiting for somebody to say no, but just showing up and participating and seeing what happens. 99% of the time, people have been like, Hey, we’re so happy to see you here. I’m happy you showed up. I’m happy you’re, you know, taking part in this thing. One percent of the time, they’re like, oh, this isn’t a good fit, or oh, we’re, you know, already booked solid. And okay, whatever. There’s a great ratio there. I’d much rather have the 99% of opportunities where good things happen, and you know, 1% of the time, not so good things happen, or I’m told no. And it’s like, okay, cool, I could deal with that. But. It starts with showing up. It starts with realizing you deserve a seat at the table, even for whatever reasons come to mind disqualify you. Set those aside for a second and say, well, what if I even, what if I try it? Even because of these reasons? What if I ignore them for a bit and just show up and give the talk, write the article, do the project, approach the client, build a relationship with the person? I mean, like. Nick and I connected. I’m not sure if I told this story on the podcast before, but Nick and I connected because I read his draft revised sales page probably two and a half years ago. And you stalked me. I literally stalked you. I signed up for your mailing list and I was like, I want to make friends with this person. I started replying to every single one of your weekly letters. Short sentence-long replies at first, paragraph replies. Then I remember: like, you wrote one article: these are all the questions I’m asking about my consulting business. I’m not really sure what direction, but you know, this is like an open letter about things I’m thinking about consulting. And I wrote back like a 2,000-word reply, and you wrote back a line, We should have a Skype call sometime. When’s good for you? And here we are, two and a half years later, good friends, podcasts, conferences, dude, all these things.
I one-on-one met zero people when I visited Portland for a conference two years ago, something, except for Kai Davis, whom I had a five and a half hour-long conversation with. And that was the first time we met in person. So, that was also, I just want to note, that was a much nicer and kinder way of saying fuck your emotions than I had. And I just wanted to say, you always are the nice one on this podcast. But, you know, like, there’s value to asking, right? And being proactive and actually pulling up a seat at the table and doing all of the other lean-in, fiddly crap that. Like, actually, it helps you advance yourself professionally. And no one else is going to do that for you. No one. Regardless of your background, regardless of. You know, I know it’s easy for us to say this as white dudes. I know a lot of people are probably eye rolling and pausing the podcast and salting the earth or whatever have you, because it’s two white dudes yelling about this. But it’s true, and it’s what the system is, and you have to play it.
I mentor a couple of my close friends in a salary negotiation and job negotiation whenever they have a promotion coming up, and whenever they Switch jobs. And the majority of the people that I work with in this capacity, it’s all pro bono, it’s because I love doing this type of work, are women and who historically are at a disadvantage when it comes to negotiating compensation or Asserting themselves within that context. And it’s been amazing how often we’ve had success just working together and me saying, listen, they’ve offered you the job. We’re in a good space here. What if we ask for this? Or let’s find some justification for this salary increase? With one of my friends, I helped her, I think, get a $25,000 a year raise just by showing up and asking. Before it was easy to qualify oneself out of making that ask. So I guess, yeah, pulling the seat up to the table and seeing what happens. Is a really viable strategy. And you might feel like, oh gosh, I don’t belong here. I literally had a dinner a couple of months ago with some friends where I looked around and I’m like, everybody here is making like Four times what I make. Jesus, why the fuck do I belong at this table? But I realized belonging at the table isn’t necessarily you meet this criteria to have a seat. Belonging, like money-wise, or business-wise, or growth-wise, belonging at the table is showing up and sitting down and saying, Hello, it’s exciting to meet you. Tell me about what you’re doing. It’s not that There’s a bar you have to meet to get inside. It’s a bar inside yourself that you have to emotionally get over. Like, I mean, you have that wonderful animated gift we’ll share in the show notes. What is it? Sounds like you need to get over your personal problems?
Yes, so somebody actually made this gif of me. I did not do this, but I was on a Skype call with somebody and I literally said you need to get over your problems and they were recording video of it. And so now there’s a video of me captioned with you need to get over your problems. Which is an in-joke in my relationship, which is hilarious. And that that turned into like a a battle against imposter syndrome is just kind of Flabbergasting to me, but yeah.
But I think it’s really true. Like a lot of it comes down to the internal game that we play, the internal game of consulting, that internal mindset of consulting and mastering it. And I don’t know if it’s necessary to look to consulting books for the answer on this. I don’t know Alan Weiss’s latest book, maybe. I haven’t read it yet, but. I think reading books more about philosophy or mindset or books about mindfulness or books in that genre are helpful just to center yourself and help give you some direction in terms of, well, Am I feeling something here that’s realistic? Or am I feeling something here that’s just the lizard brain screaming? And I need to say, hey, lizard brain is cool. You could calm down. There’s nothing to be afraid of right here. No bear is going to eat me if I show up at the table and start making friends with these people I don’t know yet and see what happens. So, yeah. Yeah, that’s it.
And then profit. And then profit. Get over your problems and then profit. God, I was. I was. Rough on this episode. I’m sorry, everybody. But like, it’s, I don’t know. Like, you’re dealing with a rigged, horrible system, and your lizard brain tells you that you should screw yourself over all the time. And you need to beat it back because you’re wrong. Yes.
Yeah. Honestly and truly. And as somebody who has dealt with anxiety issues, who has dealt with like Crisis avoidance issues, who has dealt with assertiveness issues his entire life. The biggest change in terms of the opportunities I was presented with, the friendships I could make. Came when I started making the intentional decision to show up and see what would happen. Because the worst case scenario is I’d show up and somebody would be like, oh hey, stuff. And okay, we have a conversation then. Like, I’ve pitched podcasts before for myself as a guest or for a client as a guest, and they aren’t like, How dare you? How dare you? They’re like, Hey, you know, we actually have some criteria. We really appreciate you reaching out, but here’s our criteria list. Let us know when you like match these criteria or get close and we could recontinue the conversation. But for right now, You know, we just have like this list of who an ideal guest is, and you don’t quite fit that. It’s not you, it’s just who we’ve decided to make this a space for. And let us know once you, you know, match up with this criteria. So I don’t think there’s a worst case scenario as bad as we always imagine there being. There’s just what is and what we do and what we experience. It partly comes down to getting over that fear and partly comes down to practicing the habit or exercising the muscle of showing up and seeing what happens. And I mean, shout out to Amy Huay, who’s been wonderful to. Helped me see this. Multiple times I’ve mentioned to her, like, oh, I’m so happy, you know, like this event happened, or you invited me to speak at this thing. And she’s like, why are you thanking me? Like, you’re a good speaker. You deserve to speak at this. And I realized in that moment. It was my own internal fear and imposter syndrome saying, like, oh Kai, even though you’re speaking at Bacon Biz, you don’t deserve to speak at Bacon Biz. And it finally clicked when she said that. Like, well, no, it’s not that you don’t deserve. It’s that your brain is lying to you because your brain for some reason hates you. So, learn to identify that and just put it to the side. See that your brain is a little bit afraid right now and might not be telling you the truth. Whenever my brain at least does that, I always try to take that step back and say, well, okay, I feel afraid right now, or I feel like I don’t belong, or I feel like I don’t deserve this. Why? Is it because I honestly don’t deserve it? Or is it because my brain’s just being a little weird right now? And taking that few moments or taking those few minutes just to analyze it and say, is this an opportunity that I want to act on, yes, qualifications be damned. If I feel like it’s something I want to do, let’s do it. I’m the only one who could decide if I deserve that seat at the table.
Yeah, I mean, you know what the real catastrophe is? You not having the courage to do it. Right? The catastrophe is you walking. It only matters for you.
I have walked from countless opportunities in my life where somebody has said, Here’s a cool project we’d love you to be involved in. And I’m like, oh, I don’t deserve to. I shouldn’t. You should ask someone else. I’m busy. And have literally made up excuse. Excuses to not go out with people or not attend an event or not like participate in a group project because of the fear. And looking back on it, I don’t feel angry about it. I feel sad about it in the way I’m like, oh, Kai, past Kai, I’m so sorry you didn’t get a chance to do that because you listened to that part of your brain that Tells you those stupid lies sometimes. I’m much happier now to be able to say, like, well, I’m in no way perfect at this. I may be a year to two years down the road of practicing this and experiencing this, but at least I’m building that muscle of recognizing. When my brain says you’re an imposter, you don’t belong here, take that step back and say, whoa, wait a second, why am I saying that? What would make me think that? Did somebody say that to me? Or am I telling myself lies? And just giving myself that bit of pause helps me get over that fear.
Yeah, yeah. Well then, you should just call everyone back and say yes, then.
I I if I could find my phone, I would.