The beliefs you formed at seven are sabotaging your business

Boxers & Briefs Podcast #47: How to stop doubting yourself and beat Imposter Syndrome with Monique Bradley

Imposter syndrome doesn’t care how successful you are. It shows up whether you’re stepping onto a stage for the first time or running a multi-million-dollar company.

Monique Bradley returns to Boxers and Briefs to tackle the persistent weight that sits on every business owner’s shoulders. While you might assume it only affects people starting out, the reality is different. Seasoned business owners deal with it just as much, if not more.

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Monique is a storyteller who struggled with her own self-doubts behind the scenes until she learnt to embrace her personal story. Now she teaches leaders, speakers, and business owners how to use storytelling to build confidence, inspire action, and stand out.

This conversation breaks down how to identify imposter syndrome, strategies to combat doubt and negative thinking, and why ‘fake it till you make it’ is terrible advice.

Success doesn’t protect you from self-doubt

People think imposter syndrome only affects beginners. Someone stepping onto a stage for the first time, or starting to speak at events, or handling the early stages of business. But it stays with you for a long time.

Why do experienced professionals still have imposter syndrome?

“Imposter syndrome does not discriminate,” Monique says. “It doesn’t matter where you are in your journey.”

When Monique was researching this topic for her keynote speaking business, she looked at international icons from film, theatre, television, and music. She was flying to LA about 10 years ago and picked up a copy of Rolling Stone Magazine with a story about Mick Jagger.

In the article, Jagger talked about how before he goes on stage, he’s so nervous and crippled with feelings of ‘who am I to go out on stage?’ that he’s just about throwing up. Then, as soon as he walks through the curtain, the ego of Mick Jagger takes over.

It’s like Beyoncé’s character Sasha Fierce. This alter ego is what a lot of people develop to publicly present themselves. It doesn’t mean they’re not being themselves. It’s a part of them they want to show and share with the world.

Lady Gaga shares the same experience. She wrote that every morning when she wakes up, she still feels like that geeky 16-year-old at school who didn’t quite fit in. The one who had a Facebook group set up about her filled with hate speech about how she’d never be successful. She still feels like that person every single day.

So every day, she has to wake up and ask herself: who do I want to be today? What am I here to do? How am I going to serve the people I serve?

It doesn’t matter where you are in your business journey. In fact, people starting their business journey are often freshly excited about the work they’re going to do, so they have more confidence than people who’ve been in business for a long time and have been knocked around.

Or you’re growing your business and suddenly have a team. You realise as a business owner or leader that you’re responsible for not just feeding you and your family, but your team and their families. Suddenly there’s this massive weight of responsibility.

That can manifest as ‘what the hell am I doing? How did I get here? Why do people want to ask me these questions? Why do they trust me? Why do they see me as an expert?’

It’s constant overwhelm. It affects everybody equally.

Your brain is still protecting you from sabre-tooth tigers

What’s the difference between imposter syndrome and healthy self-doubt?

Monique’s response: “Is there really such a thing?”

It’s natural to have self-doubts. Our brain is hardwired to protect us from risk, which means keeping us inside the comfort zone. When we start having self-doubts, we need to learn to understand in our body whether this is the feeling of risking the wrong thing or if it’s our brain trying to protect us.

It started when we were cavemen. Our brain’s ability to recognise danger and threats. Sabre-tooth tiger. Through lived experience, I know not to go over and pat one. That’s my brain protecting me from risk.

We don’t have sabre-tooth tigers anymore, but our brain still looks for elements to stop us from getting out of that comfort zone or taking risks. To keep us alive. That’s what it’s designed to do.

All of our ideas about what we should and shouldn’t do are largely formulated by the time we’re seven years old.

That’s it. 70% of our identity, our beliefs, how we show up in the world are formulated by that age. It’s around six to seven that our brain wave functioning changes. When we’re under seven, our brains are open to ideas, possibilities, and potential. We think and dream and anything can be real. You can be Batman or Wonder Woman or whoever you want to be.

When this brain wave changes around that age, we’re pretty much locked and loaded.

Self-limiting beliefs start to show up from that age. Through life experiences, we affirm these beliefs. No sabre-tooth tiger. No sabre-tooth tiger.

Healthy self-doubt is when we go ‘I’m not sure if it’s the right thing for me to do. How do I feel about that?’ You give yourself time to consider it. You might ask a friend. You might look at the data and details and make a more informed decision.

Where it becomes a problem, where it becomes this concept of imposter syndrome, is when it starts to paralyse you.

You’ve heard the term ‘paralysis by over-analysis.’ That’s a type of imposter syndrome. It’s usually associated with one of the archetypes called the perfectionist.

Five ways it shows up in your work

Imposter syndrome has five archetypes, created by Dr Valerie Young.

The perfectionist: Anything less than perfect feels like a failure.

The superhero or superwoman: Monique has a tendency towards this one. “I cram my diary full of everything that I can and I have to achieve everything because I have to prove my worth to the world.”

The expert: These people keep learning and learning and learning because once they’re an expert, they can prove themselves to the world. The only problem is they never stop learning. They fail to launch.

The soloist: These people aren’t great at collaboration. Nothing is ever done right unless they do it themselves. Anything less than perfect isn’t enough.

The natural genius: These people have incredible gifts, but because it is a gift, it doesn’t have value. Monique was born with the gift of hyperlexia, an ability and understanding of language beyond her years. She was speaking in sentences before she could walk. “For me, anything I do with words doesn’t really have value because number one, teachers used to tell me off all the time for talking too much, and number two, it’s too easy so it can’t be work.”

These archetypes flow through every part of our lives. Every time Monique speaks to an audience, 90% of that audience is living within some sort of imposter syndrome on a daily basis.

A common one that comes through is when people try to put together a price for their work. Valuing what you do with a monetary figure.

The $1,800 hammer and what it teaches you about pricing

How do you deal with pricing when imposter syndrome is in the mix?

It’s especially hard when you are the product. You’re valuing yourself. You’re saying how much is my time worth? How much is my knowledge worth?

It’s got to go beyond that.

Monique shares a story about a mechanic. A guy brings his car in. “My car’s not working. Can you fix it?” The mechanic looks under the bonnet. “Yep, I can fix it.” “Great, how much?” “$1,800.”

The guy needs his car, so he agrees. The mechanic lifts the bonnet, grabs a hammer, hits a part of the engine, and suddenly the car starts.

“You took like two minutes to fix my car and you’re charging me $1,800?”

The mechanic’s response: “The value of what I’m giving you is not the two minutes it took to fix the engine. It’s the years of knowledge I have to create this solution for you.”

As business owners and entrepreneurs, we get fixed on the hours we spend. We forget the value of knowledge we’ve amassed over thousands of hours of study, lived experience, and work experience. We forget the value of the transformation we give our clients.

That’s what we should be focused on when pricing.

For Monique as a speaker, getting up on stage means she has the opportunity to transform the lives of a room full of people. She spoke in Honolulu recently. Now people are messaging her from around the world saying they want to work with her, they need to change their mindset.

When you’re pricing something for a client, if you’re a coach going into work with a business and you can already see they’ve got money leaks, and you could instantly save them $50,000 to $100,000 by working with them, you don’t talk about the hour of training it’s going to take. You look at the value of money you’re going to save that client and factor your pricing based on that.

Your evidence list beats negative thinking

What’s a practical strategy somebody currently dealing with imposter syndrome could start doing today?

Monique thought hard about what she’s done over the years to help herself get through it. The biggest thing, the most actionable and easiest out of all the strategies she teaches, is what she calls the evidence list.

You make time. Get a cup of tea. Go into a quiet space. Start writing a list of evidence that proves or substantiates all of the great things you’ve done for others.

One exercise Monique loves is refreshing her website. Last night, she started putting a list of logos of brands she’s worked with. Delmar, DeLonghi, Kenwood, United Fire Brigades Association of New Zealand, MB, Public Trust. So many.

She put all these logos together on her website and looked at them. “Damn, I don’t suck too much.”

If these other people are saying they’re going to book you, whether it’s acting in an AA Insurance commercial because you’re the right actor or doing videos for Public Trust on wills, the action is you are the right solution for them.

That doesn’t define your personal value. It defines that you have value in the professional world that serves others.

And here’s the key to really overcoming imposter syndrome: stop thinking about yourself and think about how you serve.

Why fake it till you make it is dangerous advice

Fake it till you make it. That phrase makes Monique groan.

She learnt the term in theatre. Fake it till you make it. Just get out on stage and keep going. You’re going to be fine.

It has some merit in the fact that these self-limiting beliefs we create when we’re young, if you think of them like chapters in a book, your brain’s a big library filled with books that your brain writes through your experiences. It stores them away for when you need them. When you’re trying to get out of your comfort zone, when you’re trying to grow, it goes ‘oh, remember that time?’

When we’re faking it till we’re making it, there is merit in the fact that we have the ability to change the stories by writing new ones.

However, in Monique’s experience in theatre, it can lead to a situation where one director said there are certain people who fake it till they make it to the point where opinion exceeds talent.

Sometimes people will fake it till they make it till they believe the fake. They’re not actually delivering value. They’re out of the realm of competency. They’re talking a big game but can’t deliver.

When you get feedback, you’ll take on what you want to hear. ‘You’re such a good speaker.’ You grab onto it, hold it, and use it.

Certain personas will get 100 or 99 positive comments and one negative comment, and they’ll hyper fixate on that one negative comment. That’s actually more normal than we think. It’s quite normal. Again, it’s the brain’s mechanism to protect us from risk. You did all these things and sure, all those people said good things, but that one person said that.

This comes back to the evidence list. It helps you override all of that.

We are hardwired to look at the nos, the nots, the nevers, and all those disasters purposefully from a risk perspective.

Act as if you’re already there

Monique’s alternative to fake it till you make it is much more empowering: act as if.

This is a way of modelling who you want to become.

When you act as if, you start to formulate as a leader who you want to look like. What is your leadership style? There are many different leadership styles. Servant-focused leadership. Chameleon leadership, where you adapt based on who’s in front of you.

It’s about finding as a leader who you are becoming. Not who you want to become, but who you are becoming. Being intentional.

What are the qualities of good leadership? If you’re going to act as if, even though you’re not in that role right now, but that’s who you’re becoming, that starts now. That starts from how you show up at any level in a business.

You can do both. You can say ‘who do I want to be?’ and ‘how do I authentically get there?’ It’s not pretending to be like them so you can get there. It’s using the talents and gifts you’ve got.

That’s really important. Acting as if is a much better way of dealing with this topic over and above fake it till you make it. There’s too much risk with faking it. It’s not authentic.

Someone asked you to speak because they see something you don’t

You own a business. You’ve been asked to speak at something. First time speaking. You can research. You can list evidence for why these people would ask you. You can commit to doing this authentically. But there’s still going to be that ‘why me?’

What else can you do to take that step without being fake?

If you’ve been invited to speak, there’s a reason. Somebody’s seen a light in you or a value in you that you may not even know yet. They’re saying ‘I want to give you this opportunity because I believe in you.’

When you start questioning, ask not just ‘why me?’ but ‘why did that person ask me to do this? What have they seen in me that I’m the right person for this role?’

Again, stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about these people around you.

Then there’s the flip side. Maybe you’ve made the decision that you need to put yourself out there more. You’re trying to find opportunities. How can you ask for that nicely?

Monique’s method is purely through attraction. She hates cold calling. In fact, because she’s an ambivert (introvert and extrovert), she’s deeply analytical and if she has too much people time, she needs to hide away and do something creative to rebalance her energy.

She believes the easiest way, and people will argue with her, is that cold calling is great for some people. Some speakers are incredible cold callers. They bite the bullet and do it and get results. But it doesn’t work for everyone.

For Monique, her focus has always been: what value can I share through my platforms? How can I be helpful? Occasionally she’ll throw in a call to action. Through that, people go ‘wow, she’s really helpful.’

She got a big gig as a speaker through one TikTok video. It was just talking about how to show up authentically at work. That triggered a big gig.

Rather than thinking about yourself, it’s about finding your flow. Cold calling wasn’t Monique’s fit, even though she’s done it for years. It’s much more focused on how can I serve, how can I help others.

If you focus on how you help others, you’re not focusing on yourself. Your brain can only process a certain amount of information at any given time. If you’re overwhelmed thinking about you, stop. Think about somebody else.

Building new narratives takes daily practice

Does imposter syndrome ever fully go away?

No. But there are different ways to deal with it.

The more you focus on who you’re becoming and how you serve, the more you start to write new narratives.

Dr Brené Brown says that authenticity is a daily practice. Every single day we have the opportunity to create who we want to become. When you focus on the good stuff and how you serve, you literally overwrite or start to overwrite that programme called imposter syndrome.

Your self-limiting beliefs that become what we call imposter syndrome are all in your subconscious, but they started through the gateway of your conscious mind. If we come back to the conscious moment and start to change the narrative, that narrative soon becomes the stories and new books. The more we access those new books in our library, the more we start to change the narrative.

Our actions are only governed by the beliefs and thoughts in our mind. It’s a case of rewriting your programmes.

Stop calling it a syndrome

Monique wants to clarify something important: a syndrome is medically just a group of symptoms. Irritable bowel syndrome, for example, is a collection of symptoms in the gut that they don’t really know the cause of and don’t really know how to cure.

Imposter syndrome is not medically defined as a syndrome. It’s slang. Jargon. And it’s just a collection of feelings.

The great thing is that feelings change.

Monique wouldn’t give it a name because sometimes when we have a name like that, we have a barrier to success. ‘I can’t do this because of imposter syndrome.’

We’ve got to stop using it as an excuse. It’s like calling Beetlejuice or Candyman. We’ve got to get rid of that label.

It is normal to have fears. It is normal to have self-limiting beliefs and uncomfortable doubt and be uncomfortable. In fact, when we do, it’s our sign of growth.

We need to acknowledge it and go ‘wow, I’m feeling really uncomfortable. This is an opportunity for me to grow.’

It’s not imposter syndrome. It’s getting out of your comfort zone. It’s growth.

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This article and podcast is proudly brought to you by Gilligan Sheppard, the problem solvers in business who believe in thinking differently.