00;00;03;23 – 00;00;32;13
Lauren Brollier Newton
Welcome to the abundant coach. I’m your host, Lauren Brollier Newton. This is a weekly podcast about creating full spectrum success with a thriving coaching business, while making a profound difference in the world. Each week, you’ll discover insights, strategies, and inspiration to help you attract your ideal clients. Facilitate real transformation in their lives, and grow your coaching business while living your purpose with true freedom and fulfillment.
00;00;32;15 – 00;00;59;28
Lauren Brollier Newton
Welcome back to the abundant Coach Lauren A Newton here, your host and guide here at Brave Thinking Institute’s Abundant Coach Podcast and we are going to be talking about the secret to overcoming imposter syndrome in your business. This has become a thing. I think it was always a thing emotionally, spiritually, whatever the key phrase, imposter syndrome has become common vocabulary language over the last several years, 5 or 6 years maybe.
00;01;00;02 – 00;01;20;05
Lauren Brollier Newton
And it’s something that holds a lot of people back from shining their light for giving their gifts, for helping people. And I love to teach imposter syndrome in a specific way that I believe will help you take the steps that you’ve been dreaming about taking in your business, and stop you from delaying what it is that you’ve been dreaming of doing.
00;01;20;07 – 00;01;47;03
Lauren Brollier Newton
So here’s the deal. I’m going to use this quote for this imposter syndrome episode, and we’ll connect it as we go. But I remember when I was, going through my divorce and I had the realization that for the first time in my life, people didn’t like me. People in my my former husband’s family and him. And it was like the first time I actually knew that people hated me.
00;01;47;06 – 00;02;21;28
Lauren Brollier Newton
And I’m sure there were other people who didn’t care for me, but I never like, knew. So it was hard. And I think imposter syndrome is it’s a little bit different, but not so much because the whole I would define this is not like the world’s definition of imposter syndrome, but I was I would define that imposter syndrome is this idea that someone’s not going to like you because you’re doing something new, and because we usually feel like imposters when we’ve never done it before, or it’s new to us, or it’s a, you know, that’s when the imposter thing comes up.
00;02;22;02 – 00;02;41;02
Lauren Brollier Newton
But we don’t feel like an imposter, usually just making our coffee in the morning. You feel it when you think about putting yourself online or you think about going to that networking meeting. So my definition of imposter syndrome is like, you’re afraid that somebody is going to think something about you when you’re doing something new or something for the first time, or something that you don’t have a ton of experience.
00;02;41;04 – 00;02;58;06
Lauren Brollier Newton
And so the reason I started with the story about the divorce and this idea that I actually cognitively knew that people didn’t like me is because I was I was scrolling Instagram back at that time. I was laying in bed at night just feeling like real torn up about stuff. And I came across a quote. I’ve never seen it since.
00;02;58;09 – 00;03;21;15
Lauren Brollier Newton
I thought it was like Winston Churchill or something like that. But I’ve looked up this quote like, googled it and I can’t find it like it comes up with like no return. And so I don’t know if I just made up what I thought I saw because it was the thing I needed in the moment or whatever. But it said in my memory it said this if every one likes you, you stand for nothing.
00;03;21;17 – 00;03;38;20
Lauren Brollier Newton
That was super helpful to me because I was like, dude, I don’t want to be a person that stands for nothing because I’m afraid that my former husband and his, you know, parents or whoever aren’t going to like me. I want to stand for something, and I stand for the fact of, you know, in that case, what was happening in the relationship.
00;03;38;23 – 00;04;08;06
Lauren Brollier Newton
But then the the beauty of that quote is I used it a lot as I was building my coaching business, and I would get afraid to be too spiritual or too this or too that. And I’d be like, Lauren, if everyone likes you, you stand for nothing. It’s vanilla. It’s no offense to vanilla, but, you know, it’s like there’s nothing going on if everybody likes you when you take a stand for the next thing you’re doing in your life, your own next chapter, or the thing you want to teach, or the niche you want to pick or whatever it is you’re standing for something.
00;04;08;08 – 00;04;32;19
Lauren Brollier Newton
You’re standing for, something that you believe in. And in the case of overcoming imposter syndrome, you’re standing for your own value, that your life matters, that you have value, that you get to do something that maybe you’ve never done before. And that is not only okay, it’s required, in my opinion, in human birth. So overcoming imposter syndrome, I have a teaching that I like to teach on impostor syndrome.
00;04;32;19 – 00;04;57;03
Lauren Brollier Newton
I invite you to try it in on and see if it fits for you. So you’re feeling like an imposter because you’re doing something new or doing something you’ve never done before. Doing something you don’t feel like you have an a ton of experience and and somehow someone online, or someone at that networking meeting or someone that comes across your business is going to be like, oh, she’s a fake because she doesn’t have a psychology degree, or she hasn’t been doing this for five decades or, you know, whatever it is that you’re afraid that they’re going to think about, you.
00;04;57;06 – 00;05;14;02
Lauren Brollier Newton
Let me just say this first. People aren’t thinking that much about you. I remember I remember when I was growing up and I’d tell my dad, you know, I’ve got to get my makeup on, or I have to have this perfect outfit or whatever. And my dad would be like, people aren’t looking at you like that as much as you think they are.
00;05;14;05 – 00;05;32;08
Lauren Brollier Newton
Don’t be so vain to think that everybody’s looking at you. And I know that sounds like a harsh teaching, but like, I actually appreciated it because we in late that people are thinking as much about us as we’re thinking about ourselves out of fear, and likely that maybe they are thinking about you and it’s okay if they are.
00;05;32;08 – 00;05;54;01
Lauren Brollier Newton
But if they are, they’re probably not thinking based on the self-critical voice that you have in your own head. So that’s just like a general thing. Well, let me go into the teaching here. Everybody is an imposter. For the first time, they freaking do something. Think of it this way Amelia Earhart gets in an airplane for the first time.
00;05;54;03 – 00;06;18;19
Lauren Brollier Newton
First of all, planes hadn’t been flying in the sky that long. When Amelia Earhart gets in her first airplane and she’s a woman and she wants to fly around the world, was Amelia Earhart an imposter the first time she got in an airplane? Would you think of her that way? Frida Kahlo was an imposter the first time that she picked up a paintbrush.
00;06;18;22 – 00;06;39;11
Lauren Brollier Newton
Neil Armstrong was certainly an imposter when he took that first step on the moon. So you’re probably saying to yourself, oh, no, those people aren’t impostors. Well, well, why aren’t they imposters? But you’re an imposter for trying to do something new that advances yourself and advances the people that you’re going to help. Because if you’re going to call yourself an imposter, call everybody that treat everybody with the same rules.
00;06;39;11 – 00;06;54;07
Lauren Brollier Newton
If that’s the rule that you’re going to live by, that you’re an imposter because you’re improving yourself and you’re doing something new and you’re doing something different, and you’re doing something that you’re going to have to gain experience in. I mean, if you think of imposter syndrome, it’s just kind of silly because everybody has to do something for the first time.
00;06;54;10 – 00;07;22;02
Lauren Brollier Newton
Mary Morrissey, the founder of this institute, tells a story that when she very first wanting to do public speaking, she will share that her first public speaking engagement was reading a spelling test to a roomful of second graders and her knees were knocking. And then she’s giving her first speech, like public speech, and she’s terrified. So would you have looked at Mary Morrissey knowing what you know now and then, like you damn impostor, get out of here.
00;07;22;02 – 00;07;42;12
Lauren Brollier Newton
No, of course you wouldn’t. So could you not treat yourself with the same standard a grace that you would give to everybody else in this situation? If you’re not treating Amelia Earhart in your mind like an imposter, or Frida Kahlo or Neil Armstrong or Mary Morrissey, why are you doing that to yourself? And here’s how you actually can flip the script in your own mind on impostor syndrome.
00;07;42;14 – 00;08;01;27
Lauren Brollier Newton
Now, I’m going to use a word here. I’ve done this teaching enough times in my career that I’m going to use a word that might not be your word, but I would invite you to not get the word confused with the meaning. So let me say the let me say the sentence, and then I’ll give you another way to say it if it doesn’t land for you, okay?
00;08;02;00 – 00;08;27;24
Lauren Brollier Newton
Instead of thinking of yourself as an impostor, what if you thought of yourself as a pioneer, a pioneer in your own life, a pioneer in your community, maybe a pioneer in your family? The original word pioneer. I know in American culture, we think of it as like the settlers. And then we don’t love that because, you know, the American, Native American people sort of got, not sort of got they did get brutally treated on their own land.
00;08;27;24 – 00;08;56;20
Lauren Brollier Newton
And I know sometimes the word pioneer is associated with that. Put that to the side for just a second and listen to the way that I’m sharing the word pioneer. The original dictionary definition of pioneer before it was taken and used for that context, is one that goes before to remove obstructions or prepare the way for another. So if you think of Amelia Earhart, for example, as a pioneer, she went before us.
00;08;56;27 – 00;09;24;17
Lauren Brollier Newton
She removed obstacles not just for women, but in the field of aviation. She prepared the way for women, for others who had dreams. You think of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. He prepared the way he removed obstructions for others. And so if you can think of yourself in that way now, you could take out the word pioneer and call it a torchbearer, that you are someone who’s going before and removing obstructions and preparing the way for someone else.
00;09;24;23 – 00;09;41;20
Lauren Brollier Newton
Who are you preparing the way for your clients? Who you’re going to serve as a coach for you, preparing the way for other coaches who think they can’t do it, who you’re preparing the way for. Maybe your children to know that they can do it too, or someone else in your community, or someone else in your family, or someone that you run into the grocery store in.
00;09;41;23 – 00;10;11;00
Lauren Brollier Newton
But if you stay in this choke hold of I’m an imposter because I’m new at this, that is just as slick and, sophisticated way for yourself. Limiting paradigm to keep you right where you are, not helping anybody, not doing what you really came here to do, and then you’re preparing the way for no one, including yourself. So could you think of yourself as a pioneer, a torch bearer, someone who’s willing to go before so others like you can have more?
00;10;11;02 – 00;10;35;09
Lauren Brollier Newton
That’s what we’re doing here when we’re overcoming imposter syndrome. So let’s let’s make this even more practical. I think I’ve given you, you know, a very practical application. But let’s make it even more impossible to misunderstand. So you’re let’s say you’re going to go post on social media that you’ve got a coaching business. Now, or you haven’t even become a coach yet and you’re thinking of getting certified, and just that terrifies you.
00;10;35;09 – 00;10;52;24
Lauren Brollier Newton
So you’re not going after it. So pause yourself when you notice that thought. Mary Morrissey, our founder, says the first brave thinking tool, and it really is the first tool is notice what you’re noticing. Okay, so I’m thinking about posting my business online, or I’m thinking about becoming a coach and this imposter thing, this person is going to think this.
00;10;52;24 – 00;11;08;09
Lauren Brollier Newton
And what if they think that I feel like an imposter because I don’t really know what I’m doing, and you notice that, and you pause yourself on that and you say, you know, I am just not going to do this. You do that, interrupt that. I pause myself. This is not who I am. This is not who I want to be.
00;11;08;15 – 00;11;28;00
Lauren Brollier Newton
And then our master coach, Kirsten Wells, says, now we take a brave sinking breath because we want to use that as the gear shift. She calls it the gear shift out of fight, flight freeze, or what we would call the sympathetic nervous system and into parasympathetic rest, digest, create. So we take a breath in through the nose, out through the mouth.
00;11;28;02 – 00;11;46;23
Lauren Brollier Newton
Now we’re going to cause ourselves to think a different thought in my thought is, you know what? I’m not going to think of my self as an imposter. I’m going to think of myself as a pioneer or a torchbearer or a way shower, one that goes before it to remove obstructions or prepare the way for another. That is what this is here.
00;11;46;23 – 00;12;07;19
Lauren Brollier Newton
That’s the truth. That’s the ground I’m standing on. And then very important in that moment that you take the step, because that’s the only way you’re going to break yourself free from that choke hold of the self-limiting paradigm. So those would be the steps. Those would be the steps you take. Now, I know that many of you are going to be like, oh, that’s so smart.
00;12;07;21 – 00;12;28;24
Lauren Brollier Newton
All right. And, you’ll, you’ll be you’ll be able to groove with that. And there will be others of you, the more skeptical in the room that are saying to yourself, but what if I’m not? But what if I post and someone says this? What if I post? And what if I go to the networking meeting and someone asks me how many years I’ve been doing this for, okay, that’s legit.
00;12;28;24 – 00;13;04;00
Lauren Brollier Newton
Could it happen? Yes. Has it really happened that much with most of the coaches I know? No. We built it up way bigger in our mind that it actually tends to happen in real life. But let me just give you some tools for those moments. So you want to get with yourself around this. I remember I was on a coaching call with Mary Morrissey and when I in the early days, maybe I was in my second or third year as a coach, and I was making a move from having smaller group coaching programs to having big group coaching programs, and it was a little imposter, but it was more like, everybody’s going to be mad
00;13;04;00 – 00;13;20;05
Lauren Brollier Newton
at me because I’m making a change. And it’s not so different from imposter syndrome in that you’re afraid of what other people are going to think about you because of a move that you’re making, right? So I’m going to go from a much more intimate setting to a bigger group program. And I still had 1 to 1 coaching, but it was more expensive.
00;13;20;05 – 00;13;38;15
Lauren Brollier Newton
And, you know, so I’ve got this thought that people are going to think this about me and people are going to think that. And I was thinking that Mary Morrissey was going to share with me something super inspirational, like I was just expecting in my mind that we were going to, like, breathe together, and she was going to help me realize that people weren’t really going to say that about me or something like that.
00;13;38;17 – 00;13;58;00
Lauren Brollier Newton
So Mary looks me in the eyes. Mary’s got these beautiful eyes and these long eyelashes, and when she’s when she’s thinking about something, she kind of puts her chin downward. So you can imagine her with these beautiful eyes, like staring into my soul. And I’m saying, and what if they think this? And what if they think that? She looked at me and she said they will.
00;13;58;03 – 00;14;17;00
Lauren Brollier Newton
Some of them will think that about you. And I remember feeling shocked, like, oh, I thought, I thought she was going to, you know, I’m clutching my pearls. And I thought she was going to tell me, like, you know, nobody’s going to think that, you know, take a breath. And she was like, yeah, they will think that. So what are you going to not do?
00;14;17;00 – 00;14;41;08
Lauren Brollier Newton
The thing that you feel called to do, inspired to do that you believe is really going to help people. The move that you’re making, that you believe is ultimately the path for you to help more people. You’re not going to do that because somebody might think something. And she was really inviting me to get right with myself. Because here’s the thing and why I’m so grateful to her and why it was ultimately inspirational, is we cannot stop the world from thinking something about us.
00;14;41;10 – 00;15;07;18
Lauren Brollier Newton
And it would be foolish to say, nobody’s going to think that, because somebody might think that. Yeah, somebody might ask you if you’re new, somebody might ask you how long you’ve been doing this for. Somebody might even troll your Facebook and write a nasty comment. And so instead of being so afraid of that, that you stop yourself from taking action, what if you just allowed yourself to say, okay, all right, that’s legit.
00;15;07;18 – 00;15;31;16
Lauren Brollier Newton
Somebody might say that. So what? Because if they do, I’m not going to die. I’m not going to die if somebody rejects me less. Brown says rejection is a myth. It’s not like someone says no. And then they reach out and slap you, right? They say no or they don’t like you or whatever it is, but like, are you going to die because of that?
00;15;31;16 – 00;15;51;05
Lauren Brollier Newton
I mean, I can tell you people that I coached for a long time have unsubscribed from my emails or unfriended me on Facebook or whatever, whatever. The thing is that I triggered them. People who aren’t my friends, I’m sure, have in front of me. People don’t like this podcast. Whatever it is that is going to happen if you stand for something.
00;15;51;05 – 00;16;10;06
Lauren Brollier Newton
I started saying this podcast by saying, if everyone likes you, you stand for nothing. If you stand for something, there will be people who don’t like the fact that you’re shining your light for whatever reason. It doesn’t resonate with them, which is okay. Not everybody’s going to resonate with it, or there’s something that they used do, or just being who you are or your positivity offends them.
00;16;10;08 – 00;16;29;19
Lauren Brollier Newton
Whatever it is, that doesn’t mean that we stop being who we are, doing what we want to do because somebody might like, not like you. And I’m going to tell you you’re going to get way less not likes than you do likes. That is in my experience, that is true. Maybe for some people they do get a lot more hate than they get love.
00;16;29;19 – 00;16;47;28
Lauren Brollier Newton
I don’t know, but all I know is you’ve got to get real with yourself and right with your self around. Am I not going to do the thing that’s on my heart to do that? I feel called for that. I feel lit up by that. I feel inspired to because somebody, somewhere might think something about me like, really let that land.
00;16;48;00 – 00;17;13;02
Lauren Brollier Newton
Because Mary said, write to me that day. What if they think this? What if they think that? And Mary said they will. And so what? Get right with yourself because you know the truth. You know the truth of why you’re doing what you’re doing. And if you feel good inside of yourself for why you’re doing what you’re doing, isn’t that all that matters ultimately?
00;17;13;05 – 00;17;34;25
Lauren Brollier Newton
Because nobody knows your heart. Nobody’s walking in your shoes. Nobody else knows. And so we are not going to try to avoid the idea that we might be talked about, or someone might not like what we’re doing, or someone at a networking meeting might not ask us. So how long have you been doing this for? And I’m telling you, you are not going to die.
00;17;34;27 – 00;17;57;14
Lauren Brollier Newton
You won’t die. You will not die from the feeling of rejection. So let’s get real practical here. So if someone at a networking meeting says, how long have you been doing this? And you’ve been doing it for six months, say something like this. Officially, this business. You know, John Smith Life coaching for six months. But how long have I been studying for this, preparing for this and doing this thing of helping people my whole life?
00;17;57;16 – 00;18;19;07
Lauren Brollier Newton
Or if somebody says, I remember one time I was at a meeting and somebody said to me, and I had already built my business, I had already made millions of dollars. I had, you know, helped thousands of people. And I’m at this meeting, you know, like locally here. And I’m sitting next to someone and she looks at me and she says, so what qualifies you to do that?
00;18;19;09 – 00;18;43;16
Lauren Brollier Newton
Just like that. And it caught me off guard. And I was it was like I was right back to being a beginning coach. Like it triggered something in me that I was like, yeah, what does qualify what does qualify me to do this? You know, it can catch us off guard in human birth. You don’t have to feel bad about being worried about that or being caught off guard by it, but just know that it’s not like you’re going to become a high level coach and have to help thousands of people.
00;18;43;16 – 00;19;12;01
Lauren Brollier Newton
And nobody’s like, ever going to ask you a tough question, you know, or you’re not going to feel a little a little something inside. And honestly, I don’t remember what I said in that moment because I was more focused on like, oh, Lauren, look at that. You’ve been doing this for I think at that time, six years, you’ve helped thousands of people, you’ve generated millions of dollars, you’ve had a massive impact, and someone says something to you, and there’s still a little part of you that feels hurt or feels like a little girl, you know?
00;19;12;04 – 00;19;33;00
Lauren Brollier Newton
And so I so it was interesting because I’m evolved enough in this study now to know I actually don’t remember what I was responded. But I do remember thinking that that was a great gift to me, that she said that because it helped me to see the part in me that still wasn’t completely solid, and she helped me get solid, and I was very grateful for that.
00;19;33;02 – 00;19;52;04
Lauren Brollier Newton
So this is all a game of you getting solid in yourself. If she said that to me now and I now that I’ve had the experience I’ve had, I’ve said, you know what? I think what qualifies me to help people is that I am well versed in the practical tools that help people change their lives. And I’ve really helped tens of thousands of people do it.
00;19;52;07 – 00;20;06;17
Lauren Brollier Newton
And I think that the proof of how I help people is in the pudding. I don’t know, I’d say something like that, but less important of what you say, more important that you’re solid in, you’re solid in what it is you’re doing, why you’re making the moves you make, you know. So it was just so funny the way she said it.
00;20;06;17 – 00;20;22;02
Lauren Brollier Newton
What qualifies you to help people? And I got crap, I don’t know, I’ve been doing this for six years and I still don’t know. So I say all that to say it’s okay. It’s okay to feel scared. It’s okay to be unsure. It’s okay to stumble over your words. But the good news is you’re not going to die.
00;20;22;04 – 00;20;37;08
Lauren Brollier Newton
You’re not going to feel it for very long. You’re just going to you’re just going to get to a point like me where you can say, wow, thank you, God, for sending this person to sit next to me today to show me the parts of me where I’m still not solid. And thank you for showing me that I didn’t die when they questioned me.
00;20;37;11 – 00;20;51;29
Lauren Brollier Newton
And thank you for the reflection of all the thousands of people that I have helped. Or in the case of someone, if you’ve never enrolled the client, thank you for showing me that I have this calling on my heart because I know that that calling is the whisper of all the people who could use my exact message today.
00;20;52;00 – 00;21;17;22
Lauren Brollier Newton
Thank you, and you’ll just feel very grateful for all the opportunities to evolve. But it starts with the willingness. When you’re hearing that imposter signal that you notice it, that you pause on it and you say, absolutely not. You take that breath. Do you say, I’m willing to be a pioneer, a way show for myself first for my own life, for my family, for my community and beyond, to be the one that goes before, to remove obstructions or prepare the way for another.
00;21;17;25 – 00;21;36;00
Lauren Brollier Newton
And then you take the step and then just know that when you take the step, if somebody says something to you or think something about you, you’re not going to die. In fact, you’re going to thank the situation as the gift that it is for helping you on your growth and evolution journey. I think this is an important one, an important one for all of us, all of us coaches who want to help others.
00;21;36;07 – 00;22;01;26
Lauren Brollier Newton
Let’s not let this get in the way of us really putting ourselves out there to help other people and be the way she was. I love you very much. Thanks for listening and I’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining me this week on The Abundant Coach. Visit our website at Brave Thinking institute.com/coach certification, where you can dive even deeper with additional resources and exciting opportunities.
00;22;01;28 – 00;22;19;12
Lauren Brollier Newton
Be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast so you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, if you loved the show, please rate and review. To find out how to jump start your abundant coaching career and more about my journey to seven figure coach, check out our free.
00;22;19;13 – 00;22;26;28
Lauren Brollier Newton
Meant to Be a Life Coach quiz available at bti.com/coach quiz. I’ll see you in the next episode.
