How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome

Transcription

[0:00] IAN:
Imposter syndrome. I wanna overcome... imposter syndrome. I wanna overcome... imposter syndrome. Steve Worthy... Steve Worthy... help me please! Imposter syndrome... Im-podcaster syndrome. Yeah, yeah!

Welcome to episode 199 of the Confident Live Marketing podcast.

[0:24] STEVE:
I knew I can do it. I had the skills to do, but man, that imposter syndrome was like, oh my gosh, now I got to go back and lead these same people that I just leapfrogged. Or, I'm in a position now where I'm in a room with people who are just as smart as me even smarter. Now, how do I communicate?

[0:40] IAN:
Hello, my name's Ian Anderson Gray, and in this episode of the Confident Live Marketing podcast, we're talking about imposter syndrome. Do you sometimes doubt your ability? Have you ever thought of yourself as a fraud? Maybe you are suffering from what is called imposter syndrome. And if so, you're not alone. It's a common issue for creative people, business owners, and entrepreneurs. What are you going to do about it? I think we need to get on with the show, bring in my special guest and we'll talk all about imposter syndrome. Let's do it right now.

Well, hello. Welcome to the show. Very exciting. This is episode 199. We're almost at the 200, but before I talk about that, a few little housekeeping things. First of all, right now at this precise time that I'm going live, Ecamm Live version 4 is out. So if you have been listening to this show or watching this show for a while, you know the Ecamm live is my favorite live video tool and content creation tool. The guys at Ecamm have been working so hard at version 4, and it's come out just now at 4:00 PM UK time. I think that's 11:00 AM eastern. And it's got so many cool features. We've got multi streaming now. We've got a new camera switcher.

We've got Amazon Live comments. What else have we got? Oh, yeah, the bit I'm really excited about is we've also got isolated video recording, which means that I will get a clean feed of me, clean feed of my guest today, Steve, which makes repurposing so much easier. So if you wanna find out more about that, you can take it for a test drive.

If you're already an Ecamm live user, you can also upgrade. The prices have stayed the same, which is amazing. All you need to do is go to iag.me/ecamm. E-C-A-M-M. And I also wanna say this is going to be the last live episode of the Confident Live Marketing Show for a little while.

I'm having a little bit of a break. I've been broadcasting this show since May, 2019, and as I prepare for episode 200 and the fourth year anniversary, I'm taking a little bit of a break, so that I can just reboot things and I'd love to hear from you what your thoughts and ideas are as we go into episode 200.

I'm going to be doing a big episode. We're going to have a party. We're going to have some really cool things, but if you wanna find out more about that, then do subscribe to my newsletter, iag.me/newsletter. Now, this is really important. The podcast is going to continue every week. Every single Friday, the episode will come out.

But instead of being a new live episode, I'm going to be going back into the archives and we'll be looking at some of the best moments from previous episodes, so the podcast can be found at iag.me/podcast. In today's episode, we're talking about the dreaded imposter syndrome. It required a scary voice, and it's something that so many of ours struggle with. I've got a special guest to bring in on the show and to introduce to you.

It is the fabulous Steve Worthy who is a podcasting veteran he began in 2007 with By husbands, for husbands, a podcast and business focused on helping entrepreneurial husbands succeed professionally and personally by balancing work and family.

Steve is a seasoned business leader with over 25 years of executive retail leadership experience. His career is focused on assisting podcasters and leaders to find their unique voice and understand how to fit within their culture to advance their podcasts and career. Currently as an entrepreneur, Steve teaches both novice and experienced podcasters how to livestream to his podcaster's live academy.

Steve views this as the best medium for podcasters to grow and engage with their audience authentically, and I totally agree with that. Welcome to those shows, Steve.

[5:22] STEVE:
What's going on? Lemme see if I have the funny voice thing here too. I don't know if I have it or not. Let's see. No, that's the wrong one. There it is. There we go. Together we can go live. I love your intro, man.

[5:41] IAN:
Oh, thank you. Then we got all the family in on that one. So when I do the new one, the thing is my son's voice is broken now, so it's going to be too good. Oh, we could go, like, it's going to be like that.

[5:52] STEVE:
That's interesting. His voice, the Peter Brady thing, that's what we call over here. It's a famous old show, the Brady Bunch and Peter Brady's voice, they were doing this singing and it starts cracking. So, that's so funny. That's so funny.

[6:08] IAN:
Yeah, maybe at the moment it would be a bit like that. But anyway, I'm excited to have you on the show because I feel like we haven't met yet. We haven't because last year in May 2022, we were both at PODFEST or VIDFEST in Orlando, Florida. I know you couldn't speak and then you had to dash off. But we briefly caught each other and we had a few words, but I knew that I wanted to get to know you more. I wanted to have you on the show and it's taken a bit of a while, but you're here now, exciting.

Exactly, man. No, I'm really excited to be here. Yeah, we chatted for a minute and, I'm a little upset because I wanted to be number 200. I'm 199, but that's okay. I'll take 199.

I'm sorry about that. You were trying to get in there. I can see what you're doing. You're trying to get there to 200.

[7:04] STEVE:
I was delaying. I was like, what? 97? Okay. I think if I book now, I'll probably be 200. It didn't work.

[7:14] IAN:
Yeah. There we go. As I said, I'm having a bit of a break because I think sometimes we were talking about this just before we started recording, that you've moved to Atlanta.

[7:26] STEVE:
Mm-hmm.

[7:26] IAN:
As we say in the very British voice, Atlanta, I should say. And you've moved there, one of the reasons you mentioned was because it has this, this creative side to you.

[7:41] STEVE:
Yeah, I used to live here from 2000 to around 2009. And during that time of my life, I felt and I knew I was actually probably the most creative entrepreneurial from an entrepreneurial standpoint, creating concepts, helping people with their business, helping people with their marketing, all these different aspects of my life really started to germinate here and propel me forward.

And then as we were talking earlier, the corporate will took over. You started making more money, you started to do all these other things, and you start to move away from those creative juices. And then when I realized that I needed to go back, when I say needed, I internally needed to go back to that creative side as I was ending my career in retail. Atlanta was just a place, and we called it and I told you I had to come back to the source and I really felt like Atlanta was the source. It has been. And it continues to be the source for my creativity. We have so many things going on and I'm excited to be back in this great town and enjoy the vibe that it's been giving me.

[8:55] IAN:
Definitely. If you are listening or watching I'd love to know from you where is your source of creativity? What gives that creative spark for you? For me, I don't know. It's going somewhere different. I think if I'm in the house all the time, sometimes I get stifled, so getting out of the house.

I love my little trips to the US. I need to go back to the US this year, but I'm not quite sure when that's going to happen. But that always helps me to be creative. And one of these days I'm going to actually visit Atlanta. I've only ever visited the airport, which

[9:28] STEVE:
I was doesn't count.

I was just about to say no, it counts because it's own city, if you will, in this city. But I was just about to say that. Man, dude, you got to come to Atlanta. There's so many great things to do here. You bring your kids and your wife.

So many great things to do, restaurants, and we can show you around. So just let me know.

[9:46] IAN:
Awesome. Thank you for that. Before we get onto imposter syndrome, I'd love to know a little bit about how you got into what you're doing. I mentioned in the bio that you had this podcast for husbands. That piqued my interest. I think that's not something I hear very often.

How did you get into what you're currently doing, which is teaching podcasters to go live? And I totally agree that it's a fantastic medium. Particularly for people like me who are maybe a bit, I'm going to admit it, recovering perfectionists. So going live, you just get it done and then you can repurpose it into all these different places.

You're preaching to the choir here with that, but how did you get into what you're currently doing?

[10:25] STEVE:
Yeah. I'm one of those fortunate people. I think there's a lot of us out here. I found my trifecta, so to speak, which is leadership, podcasting, and live streaming. The leadership portion came first where I started teaching a whole bunch of different people different leadership skills, how to start a business.

And then I was at my church in Atlanta actually at the time, teaching people how to start a business. And a good friend of mine, he came on board. We started teaching a class together and we said we need to do something different. So, we came up with this idea of helping husbands balance the idea of being a husband or of being a husband and actually being an entrepreneur. It is a balancing act because you want to invest so much time in your business, but you also have to make sure that you're balancing time being a husband, father, and things along that line.

And so By husbands, for husbands was born and we started actually utilizing, back then was called Blog Talk Radio. Then we got turned in 2007 to podcasting by a CEO friend of ours. And so we started stripping out the audio. I'm downloading, using RSS feed to upload and then sending out to people. Apple was the only spot pretty much at that time where people can actually download the RSS feeds. And my podcasting journey started then.

I think for me, as I ramped back up in the podcast, I took a break from 2007 to around 2012, started back up again around 2018, 2019. I started back just podcasting and then this whole live streaming bug, I just started watching it on LinkedIn share Sharon Jones* a couple other people who were just doing it.

They were pioneers in some of that stuff. And I said, this is actually a really cool medium. And what happened was I was part of this international podcast group, and we would meet once a month, four of us broke off and started our own group and we would meet every month, almost twice a month.

I said, "Dude, this should be a podcast. Podcasters talking about podcasting." And next thing I was already dabbling in live streaming with my retail leadership podcast. We can talk about that one later. But what happened was, it was international Podcast day. I ended up going live with two other podcasters, and that was 2021. Right after that, Podcaster's Live was born. I just said, this is the best way, I think for podcasters to, one, get over their fear of a podcaster syndrome, which we're going to talk about, but it's also one of the best mediums to grow their discoverability and audience. That's how Podcaster's Live and my journey into podcasting and live streaming was born.

[13:31] IAN:
That's awesome to hear. I'd love to hear people's stories and everyone has so many different stories, but there are a few little strands that seem to be very similar. Now, I've talked about imposter syndrome on the show before, but not in any great detail. It's something that I've definitely struggled with from time to time and sometimes in my life, it's been even more than others, I think.

But how would you define what imposter syndrome is?

[14:00] STEVE:
Yeah. Imposter syndrome is really that feeling of inadequacy that you feel when you are involved to embark on something that's unknown or undiscovered within how you actually live your life or the journey that you're currently on, the tendency. You don't get imposter syndrome when you are doing something that you're already adept at or that you're comfortable doing.

The tendency sometimes is that we start to internalize imposter syndrome and make it into this bad thing. And I have flipped it on its head in the context of realizing and helping people realize that, man, you're about to do something that you've probably never done before.

Like, how cool is that? So how do we get past that feeling of like, I may not be good enough to the point of, wow, this is something really dope in my life. Now let me take advantage of it. So we've been able to flip it on its head. But what we've found in our research is that the imposter syndrome, of course, about 70% of people actually deal with it throughout the entire world.

It is an equal combination of, how we were reared, our socialization as a kid, but then also as we move into adulthood, really trying to figure out who we are, and sometimes we start to emulate other people and we don't really have a good grasp of who we are. And so, we end up taking on all these different personas and not really figuring out who we are.

Because once you figure out who you are, a little bit more, now you're able to become a little bit more comfortable. But impodcaster syndrome is something that takes place when you're really about to embark on something that's really new in your journey, something that you've really never done before.

[15:41] IAN:
Oh, that's fascinating what you said about how it can come from the fact that we maybe don't know ourselves. And I think that in my mid to late forties, which is where I am now, that I feel a lot more comfortable in who I am. So imposter syndrome has had less of a hold. I think three or four years ago, it was a lot more. And part of that was because it was what I thought other people thought about me. So,

[16:10] STEVE:
hundred percent

[16:11] IAN:
I started to get success. I started to get asked to speak at events and this voice in my head was thinking, but do they not know that I'm not an expert, I don't know anything about this. Surely they're going to find out. And I really doubted myself and it was what I thought other people thought of me. Can you expand a little bit more on that? Because I think it's what we think of what other people think of us. That could be a big problem here.

[16:40] STEVE:
100%. We have broken down. So we have a book coming out that's called 'How to Beat Impodcaster Syndrome'. And what we've done within the book is really broken down the book into two different type of triggers. There are internal triggers and external triggers. Some of the internal trigger is that internalized fear of being found out.

Another internalized trigger is embracing the ideas of what happened to us as a youth and how those things impacted our life. The other part of it is a trigger relative to like, I may not feel adequate. Even though I know that I actually have what it takes to actually be here, there is still something inside of me that feels that I'm not adequate. And whoever I'm looking at or whoever I'm talking to, they can see right through me. Doesn't matter how much confidence that I'm speaking with. And all of those internal triggers are really just rooted in, honestly, us telling ourselves a lie. And what I mean by that is, when you have done the work, when you have put in the time, when you have educated yourself, when you have prepped and done all these things, the psyche sometimes tells us, we tell ourselves a lie that we're just not good enough because we are, we are looking for the approval of someone else.

And when we're doing that, man, that just wasn't good enough. How do they feel about that? We're not particularly sure. You know what? Stop the process of seeking the approval of other people and trust who you truly are. And that just takes time. That takes confidence in learning who you are.

That takes you having some wins under your belt, some successful shows. But then also as you and I know, going live, I just did a live streaming Saturday. I felt it was horrible, but man, I got through that puppy because I knew that I needed to get through that process. So helping helping yourself get through that process of understanding, once again, more about who you are can actually help combat the lies that we tell ourselves.

[18:49] IAN:
So true. And I think sometimes we'll need some help from other people. I've definitely felt that although you've got to find out who you are, sometimes getting help from coaches or from a husband or a wife or whatever, somebody who knows you. I've mentioned this before on the show, but years ago, I went on this course called The Growing Leaders Course, and one of the questions was list your strengths. What are your strengths? And I couldn't list a single one. I didn't list anything. And it was my wife who said, "Ian, don't be silly. You're good at this, you're good at this." And I started to think, oh yeah, I am quite good at that, but I needed somebody else to help me with that.

[19:29] STEVE:
Hundred percent.

[19:30] IAN:
You've mentioned, impodcaster syndrome. That's your phrase for imposter syndrome, but tell us a little bit more about that word you're using.

[19:39] STEVE:
Yeah, it's a direct derivative of imposter syndrome. But we deal with it of course because we deal with the content creators, podcasters, and live streamers. And the reason why we wanted to utilize and differentiate that is because there is a measure of difference when it comes to content creators and somebody in the business world.

In the business world where I first struggled with the content or with imposter syndrome, I was able to mask a little bit of the imposter syndrome with my degrees, with my position with authority, with money. I'm able to mask my feelings of inadequacy with all these other veneers.

However, when we start talking about content creators, you are really creating the level of intimacy with your content and who you are with your audience. There is absolutely no room for you to hide. You will be found out if you don't come across as authentic or as real as possible with your audience.

So the imposter syndrome is not so much unique, but there's a unique aspect to it. I feel that we'll be talking about in the book as it relates to content creators because once again, there is a level of vulnerability. You know that during a podcast, the level of intimacy that you have and you alone connecting with your audience from an audio standpoint is intense.

So, the impodcaster syndrome is helping us as a unique aspect of the industry, content creators, podcasters, the live streamers understand that the authenticity part of it is actually a little more unique, and that's what intensifies the impodcaster syndrome.

[21:29] IAN:
That's fascinating. I think for me, live streaming and podcasting has been simultaneously the most difficult thing that I've done, but also the most liberating thing that I've done when I first went live. I could have called myself the reluctant live video guy. That could have been my brand name, the reluctant live video guy.

But because I went through that process, of allowing myself to be vulnerable, it has helped me become more confident. It can be, for some people, a really scary thing, but it's so important to do that. Now, I do want to bring in some great comments from Alec Dorling.

Great to see Alec watching on LinkedIn. And this is really interesting because Alec is a consultant. I'm a consultant too, and I definitely feel this. He says "Imposter syndrome for me is being an expert in my field and not wanting to get caught out with questions I can't answer.. how did I solve >>." That's a hard one because when you are seen as an expert, and I find this, I'm sure you do too. I'm an expert. I'm seen as an expert in the world of live video podcasting. But if somebody asks me a question that I don't know, surely that would make me look like a complete idiot.

Now, I don't feel that personally because I think the role of a consultant is if I don't know the answer, I can probably find out or I'll know somebody who does. But I'm just interested in your thoughts is what Alec is saying here.

[23:12] STEVE:
Yeah, this is when the leadership side of me kicks in. Because as a leader, I have learned throughout my entire career that I don't have all the answers and that the team around me, we collectively we have the best answers. But when you're by yourself and someone asks you a question, I have learned as a leader, sometimes if I don't know the answer, I'll say, "Hey, I'm not sure about that. How about we trying to discover this together? It's a really great question. I don't know the answer." And what I try to do is I try to get back to them as quickly as possible with a potential answer, but it is okay. Honestly, not knowing something or saying that you're not knowing something is more important, is more powerful than you trying to talk your way into knowing something or trying to say, "Tell me a little bit more. What do you mean by that?" You know exactly what they mean. You just don't have the answer. So just say you don't have the answer. That's what happens. We start to try to dance around. But you end up actually getting and gaining more credibility. A lot of times when you say you don't know something confidently and try your best to get back with them with the answer, it's the hardest thing to do because we feel like we will be seen as a fraud. But I've learned that in my life and as a leader, that I don't know all the answers. So, I have become more comfortable in saying, "I don't know the answer.".

[24:38] IAN:
Yeah, I think people actually want to hear you say that because there's nothing worse than being fobbed off with other stuff. I remember going into an Apple store. I don't think it was an Apple store. It was some computer store, and we knew that this new Mac came out without the CD drive, the DVD drive.

It was the first one without that. And we asked the guy, "So, where's the DVD driver?" He said, "Oh, I don't know. I think it's under here somewhere." he obviously didn't have a clue and he was trying to fob us off with something and we'd just lost confidence in the guy. If he just said to us, "Oh, I don't know. Let me find out, I'll find out for you." And if he went away and came back, "Oh, this new computer, Apple now removed the DVD drive." Then that would be much better. So yeah, don't fob people off.

[25:33] STEVE:
No. No, not at all.

[25:36] IAN:
Not at all. Now, Alec also says, "I started to go live on a totally different subject of stepping up to live going from zero to hero status. This allowed to make mistakes and not to get embarrassed. Now I have confidence for anything." And that's awesome just to be able to do that. So Steve, I assume that your interest in this has been because you have had experience with imposter syndrome. Is that the case? Have you struggled with imposter syndrome and maybe tell us a little bit about your experience with it and or other people that you've worked with and how you got over it.

[26:14] STEVE:
Yeah, absolutely. Once again, it hit me professionally first in the context of accelerating in my career. I was very fortunate to be able to get promoted quickly in different roles that I was in. And part of that almost promotional gain came a little bit of angst because I was literally leapfrogging people that were in the position 10, maybe 15 years more than I was, and now I'm leading these people, but I'm leapfrogging.

I knew I can do it. I had the skills to do, but man, that imposter syndrome was like, oh my gosh, now I got to go back and lead these same people that I just leapfrogged. Or, I'm in a position now where I'm in a room with people who are just as smart as me or even smarter. Now, how do I communicate? What do I look? How do I dress? All these different things that I was dealing about from an external standpoint, not realizing I had all the internal wherewithal to actually meet the needs of whatever situation I was in. Jump forward to podcasting, same situation where initially I was nervous about podcasting.

Then we actually met a gentleman named Herman Cain when we were in Atlanta at a leadership conference. And he had a really big radio station, a really big radio show. My buddy and my co-host and I, we got a op opportunity to talk to him and we said, "Dude, help us. We're both nervous about doing this." And he said, "You got to figure out that one person that you want to talk to. And just talk to that person." And we were like, "Dude, that just seems too simple." He said, "I'm telling you right now, it works." And it worked. Here's the thing, Ian, if you and I were just at a coffee shop, I wouldn't really be concerned about imposter syndrome.

You and I would just be having a chat. And we would just be sitting down just like two guys talking about Manchester or whatever. That right there, if you are able to translate that to a live stream or to a podcast standpoint, guess what? Now it takes a little bit of the weight off because the tendencies that we start to think we're talking to thousands of people and you're not.

So if you can actually turn that mindset and shift it once again to just having a conversation with just Ian, man, it takes a lot of the weight off. And so, I've been able to translate that to help me with my impodcaster syndrome.

[28:59] IAN:
Isn't it annoying when the answer to a lot of our problems is actually really simple?

[29:04] STEVE:
Super simple.

[29:05] IAN:
It's like almost too simple. But you're so right. For example, if I started to think about all the millions of people that could be watching in today to watch this, first of all, I'm deluded because there are not millions of people watching me. Anyways, great if that was the case.

But the thing is, think about the individual and if you are a content creator, if you're an entrepreneur, a business owner, you are wanting to do what you're wanting to do to help people, I assume, and to serve people. Yes, you wanna make money if you're a business owner, but you also wanna help people.

So if you think about the individual there, that is the way to think about it. And it has really helped me. It has helped me with all my content creation. Now, I do wanna bring in Cher Jones has put a fantastic comment down there.

In fact, Alec Dorling says, "Good comment." Cher is saying, "What you don't know is actually powerful confidence builder. Because you can always bridge it to, "Here's what I do know..." (when possible.)" And I think that's great. You mentioned that before about flipping imposter syndrome. In our minds, often there's this negative voice.

Now, we've talked about this in the show. Sometimes I like to personify this voice. So my daughter talks her voice in her head. It sounds really weird, but her anxiety is called 'Albert'. Mine's a librarian. And he likes to check everything in the library first to make sure everything's okay.

And then he starts to speak to me. He says, "Ian, you don't really know what you're talking about. You're not organized enough. You need to look it up in the books first before you go on the show. Otherwise, you're going to look like a complete idiot." And I think as once I've started to personify a little bit more, I actually realize how stupid it is. A loss of the time.

And I can say back to the librarian, "It is all right. I've got it covered. It's okay. I'm going to come on the show. In today's show, I've got Steve. I don't need to know anything because I'm going to ask Steve all the questions.

[31:18] STEVE:
It's how we, interesting how we trick ourselves. In the upcoming book, we talk about external triggers and gear acquisition syndrome is one of them. We talk about skill stacking. That's another one in context of, we surround ourselves with all these different external factors to make ourselves appear more than what we are.

And really they are just covering up these gaps in our persona. So if we can remove these gaps from our persona and really focus in on who we are, the better off we'll be and the more authentic, I think that's such a overused word, but the more authentic that we'll come across with our audience.

[32:13] IAN:
Yeah, it is a word that's overused, but it's so important, I think, to be yourselves. If you are a business owner and you are acting like somebody else and then they hire you, they're going to be really confused when they get somebody that's not on the screen, this completely different person. So, that's really important. And Alec is saying, "Flipping imposter syndrome - now that's a good show hook!" Yeah, definitely flipping.

[32:42] STEVE:
 I'm that one. I'm using that one. using that one.

[32:45] IAN:
Definitely, yeah. You need to trademark that quick. Get the domain name. Cher says, "I love that strategy of personifying those voices. It allows you to separate them from who you are." Absolutely. Because that is not what defines you. So, we've got quite deep.

[33:01] STEVE:
Yeah.

[33:02] IAN:
But I think this is really important. And in only like half an hour, we're not going to be able to do justice to all of this stuff. There's going to be some people watching and listening who hear what you're saying, really resonate with what you're saying, Steve, but they're thinking, what next?

What do I do? All of these things sound simple. But I really need help. I've got into my thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, whatever age you are, and they feel that this has stopped them from achieving what they were put on this earth to achieve. What would you say to somebody like that?

What are the next steps for people who are struggling with these things?

[33:46] STEVE:
The question I'll answer before that one is people tend to ask me, "Do you ever get over impodcaster syndrome?" And my answer is no. I'll use a quick movie illustration. I don't know if any of you have seen A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe. He plays John Nash, a Nobel Prize mathematician who over time ends up losing his mind. Kind of like Schizophrenia, sees three different voices and things like that, but he's still super brilliant and the government still wants him on his team and he gets to the point of his career where he's just a fixture on the university.

He's still seeing all of these voices. But the Nobel Peace Prize people come to him and they say, "Hey we want to give you the Nobel Peace Prize and we just wanna know if you're still okay." And he said, "Really? You want to know if I still see the voices?" And they're in the cafeteria in the university, and he looks over and he sees the three voices that he's been dealing with all his entire life.

Like you were just talking about those voices personified. He sees those three voices. He says, "You know what? They're still there, but I choose to ignore them. So I think as we start to think about impodcaster syndrome, we have to think about those voices and those things that are going to be there.

They're going to continuously be there at every level that we go to. The voices are going to get louder or they're going to get softer, they're going to be there. It's our choice whether or not we actually choose to listen to them. One of the things that we talk about in our book from a strategy standpoint, we call it TAT.

It's called take notice, assess, and then take action. One of the first parts that you have to do is you actually have to take notice when you are delving into this mindset of imposter syndrome or the triggers of imposter syndrome and understanding that, oh, shoot. This situation right now is triggering me to actually feel inadequate.

And then you actually have to assess the feelings. Am I really not prepared? Because sometimes when you're about to go live, you're about to do something, you're really not prepared. Okay, great. If you can assess that you're really not prepared, then fix that.

Make sure you prep. I'm about to go speak somewhere. Assess, are you really prepared? No, I'm not really prepared. Do what you need to do to actually get prepared. That will actually lessen the anxiety that you're feeling. And then the last portion is take action. And whatever that requisite action is, whether it's the prep work that you need to do, whether it's working with somebody in your speech, whether it's going live in a private community to build your confidence, those are the actual strategies or the framework. Now, here's the one thing that we talk about all the time and we're going to be talking about, is that it's not linear. Going through this strategy or this framework isn't linear.

Your assessment at the very beginning or at the very middle is larger than some other people because you're dealing with more stuff than another person. And that's okay, but it's just actually going through the process. Going through the framework will actually help you come out on the other end.

[37:00] IAN:
Fascinating stuff. That's really helpful. How much does us comparing ourselves with others come into this? Because this has been an issue for me. I remember when I was speaking at some big conferences in the US. I think that was when my imposter syndrome was the strongest, when I was there and I was thinking, why have they asked me to speak here? Even though deep down I knew my stuff, I'm good at what I do, but I still have this negative voice in my head thinking those things.

And I even got to the point where I didn't want to tell anyone that I was speaking because mean, it's absolutely ridiculous. Now I look back on that and I think how silly it was. But a lot of that was to do with me comparing myself with others who were speaking at the event, and people that I looked up to thought they were amazing.

Now I've felt since then. I've come on a long way, but it was a real struggle back in those days. What would you have said to me back in those days when I was feeling like that?

[38:01] STEVE:
Yeah. I would say it's natural. It is natural to compare yourself to other people. The tendency is that we want to run away and say, no, we shouldn't be doing something. Certain things are natural as a human being. When you get a new car or your car's getting old and you see a nice little flashy car that comes past you, you're like, "Ooh, that's nice."

Then you start to look at the car that you have and you're like, oh my gosh. I may need to do something different with this car. The comparison piece is just natural. It's natural in sports, it's natural in business. Understanding that that's going to take place, the biggest piece is that the confidence that you need to actually have within yourself and what you actually have to offer.

One of the things we talk to people about all the time is that somebody's out there waiting to hear what you have to say. People who wanna start a podcast or people wanna go live. And they move. I know this sounds super pollyannish, but they can't move until you actually say what you need to say.

They are stuck. Like that one person that we just talked about earlier, they're literally stuck until you actually get on the mic and say what you need to say. I know people are like, "Oh my gosh, but I'm only Ian." No, it doesn't matter, Ian. That one person is still waiting to hear what you have to say.

But the other side of it is that someone has seen something. This is the leadership part of me coming out again, because as a leader, when I was a young leader, I didn't want to be a leader. I ran from leadership so fast when I was a teenager, until I moved into the Air Force, until someone told me.

He said," Steve, leadership will always find you out. Meaning that when you're called to lead, lead. And people are going to see something inside of you that you don't see inside of yourself." It's the same thing when you start to go to these speaking engagements. People will hear you, hear Ian or Cher Jones or Alec, and they're like, "Dude, ooh, I got to have them on stage."

So trust in the fact that someone sees something inside of you that is of such importance that you need to get on that stage and speak to that audience. And so, the comparison piece is going to be there, but trust the process and trust what people are saying that are going to actually get you on that stage, and also trusting your abilities.

[40:25] IAN:
So true. Trust in your abilities. Trust in the people that put you there and those voices. I love the Beautiful Mind comparison there. They will probably always be there, but at some points, hopefully with work, they'll be a lot quieter. You won't be able to silence them completely, but you'll be able to dampen the sound. I'm not doing a very good job here, Steve, because it is all your fault because I'm really enjoying this conversation so much. You're delivering so much value, but I am trying to do my best at making these podcast episodes a little bit shorter. So, I'm going to try and wrap things up, even though really, I would love to talk to you for the next two hours about this. It's absolutely fascinating. So you've mentioned this book you're writing. Tell us a little bit more about when is that going to be available? Do you know when that's going to be coming out? Or a little bit more about how we can find out about it when it does come out.

[41:20] STEVE:
Yeah, it's in rewrites right now, so we're going to have a landing page coming up here pretty quickly. And that's just going to give you the opportunity to be part of our beta readers. And hopefully within early mid-spring, is the goal for us to actually have this book out.

I just met with my publish. He's actually over in the UK outside of the leads. And I had a great conversation. So we're about like one and a half rewrites from actually getting it to where we want it. And he's excited about it, so that's cool when your publisher is excited about about your book, and not just you. But the focus is truly on.

Helping podcasters, live streamers, content creators work through that process. And we all go through it. But the TAT framework is really going to be the glue that holds everything together. We actually have people inside of the book that have actually used it. So we actually have a real use case for it as well.

The book in and of itself has been something I've been wanting to do for a while. And so I'm excited to actually get it out to you as soon as I possibly can. Believe me, you will hear more and more about it. And hopefully when it comes out, I can come back on here and we could talk more about it then too.

[42:37] IAN:
Definitely, we'll have to do that. And if people want to find out more about you, I've got your website up here. You've got a couple of websites, so you've got podcasterslive.com. Tell us a little bit more about podcasterslive.com.

[42:53] STEVE:
Yeah. Podcasterslive.com. One of the things that we've been focusing on initially was how to use livestream to actually help podcasters with their discoverability. That was our first iteration. But now we've moved into more of a platform to help content creators from a global community standpoint, utilize podcasting and live streaming to grow their platform.

So instead of it just being about this local discoverability we're taking a global perspective to it. And we've actually did that last night by actually having our very first international addition. We had some of the top minds in podcasting in the Philippines on last night.

So we're going to be doing that on a monthly basis, picking a different country and having some of the top podcast and livestream voices actually on there talking about the industry and what people can learn as well. So, we've actually been growing a brand from that standpoint as well.

We're actually going to do the UK in March. So let me know, Ian, if you wanna be part of that panel in March because we're going to be in the UK. Not in the UK, but we're going to have the UK podcasters and live streamers in March.

[44:06] IAN:
Oh, count me in on that one. That sounds awesome. Really interesting to find out more all about that. So that is podcasterslive.com. Your website is askSteveworthy.com. And how people find out more about you or follow you online on the socials? Where do you tend to hang out these days?

[44:27] STEVE:
LinkedIn is going to be the best place first to connect with me. Of course I'm Steve worthy everywhere. But LinkedIn is going to be that very first place. askSteveworthy.com is like a repository, if you will, because invariably, you know leadership is my first thing that I deal with and I go after.

And typically on different podcasts, I will talk about Podcasters live, but more often than not, I end up talking about leadership. And so, I end up getting a lot of people who want to talk to me about leadership. So we've created the askSteveworthy website. So, you can pick and choose.

You can say, "Hey Steve, I need help with my podcast on livestream." "Hey Steve, I need help with my leadership journey so I can help you there as well."

[45:19] IAN:
Awesome. It starts with the podcasting, but it all leads to leadership, I suppose, at the end of the day. Thank you so much, Steve. Thank you for all the amazing stuff that you've shared with us today. It's been a real honor to have you on the show and we'll definitely do it again once I've got episode 200 out. I know you've been wanting the episode 200, but it might be 203 or 204. We'll see how we get on.

[45:47] STEVE:
That's fine. Thank you for having me, Ian. I appreciate it.

[45:51] IAN:
Oh, it's been great. Thank you, Steve. We are at the end of episode 199. As I said at the beginning, the podcast will be coming out every single Friday. Do go to iag.me/podcast and I will also let you know when the next live episode, episode 200 will be.

We're going to be doing something very exciting for that, but I'll be talking about that on the podcast and the newsletter. But that is it for this time and until next time, I encourage you to level up your impact, authority, and profits through the power of Confident Live video season. Bye.