Joining us this episode is Sheryl Anjanette, an accomplished entrepreneur and author of The Imposter Lies Within: Silence Your Inner Critic, Tame Your Fear, Unleash Your Badassery. Sheryl’s expertise in business, mindset, and wellness offers a unique perspective on understanding and overcoming imposter syndrome.
Defining Imposter Syndrome
Sheryl Anjanette begins by defining imposter syndrome as a psychological pattern where individuals feel inadequate despite evident accomplishments. This disconnect often leads to feelings of fraudulence, where one might think, “I’ll never be able to do it again,” despite past successes. Understanding this pattern is crucial for addressing the underlying issues.
Sheryl’s Personal Journey
Sheryl shares her personal journey of dealing with imposter syndrome. Despite her extensive experience and certifications in various fields, she struggled with feelings of inadequacy. It was through deep introspection and advanced training in hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioral neuroscience, and other disciplines that she began to understand and address these feelings. Her journey underscores the importance of recognizing and working through imposter syndrome to achieve personal and professional fulfillment.
Myths and Misunderstandings
One major myth Sheryl debunks is the notion that simply feeling the fear and doing it anyway will cure imposter syndrome. While pushing through fear is part of the process, it is not a comprehensive solution. Another damaging myth is the idea that imposter syndrome is normal and something one just has to live with. Sheryl emphasizes that while common, it is not something that should be accepted as a permanent condition.
Archetypes of Imposter Syndrome
Sheryl introduces seven archetypes of imposter syndrome: the Perfectionist, the Lone Ranger, the People Pleaser, the Savior, the Superhero, the Master, and the Prodigy. Understanding which archetype you align with can provide insight into your specific patterns and help you develop strategies to overcome them. For instance, the Perfectionist ties their self-worth to their accomplishments’ quality, while the Lone Ranger feels they must do everything alone to avoid being exposed as inadequate.
Role of the Subconscious Mind
The subconscious mind plays a significant role in perpetuating imposter syndrome. Sheryl explains that many of our beliefs and behaviors are programmed early in life and become ingrained over time. Techniques such as hypnotherapy can help reprogram these subconscious beliefs, allowing individuals to break free from the cycle of self-doubt and inadequacy.
Moving Forward
Sheryl’s insights provide a valuable framework for understanding and overcoming imposter syndrome. By recognizing the patterns and myths associated with it, identifying personal archetypes, and addressing subconscious beliefs, individuals can begin to silence their inner critic and unleash their true potential.
For those looking to delve deeper into this topic, Sheryl’s book, The Imposter Lies Within, offers practical tools and exercises to help readers on their journey to self-acceptance and empowerment. And you may learn more about Sheryl by visiting her website.
You may also refer to the transcripts below for the full transciption (not edited) of the interview.
Greg Voisen
Welcome back to Inside personal growth. All of my listeners know who I am. But the lovely woman on the other side of the screen is Sheryl Anjanette. Day and she lives in Rancho Santa Fe, California, which is the hop skip and a jump from Encinitas where we record this podcast from. Good day to you Sheryl, how you doing? Good. Hi,
Sheryl Anjanette
Good. Hi, great. Good to be here.
Greg Voisen
It's good to have you on the show. Finally, and for all my listeners. I don't always get to meet my authors in person. But actually, Sheryl and I got to have lunch, which was really nice. And here's the book. You can actually see it on her desk right by her. You can see it there. This book is really The Impostor Lies Within: Silence Your Inner Critic, Tame Your Fear, Unleash Your Badassery. And Sheryl is the person that can speak with you about this. I'm going to let our listeners know Sheryl. A little bit about your background. And for all my listeners, you can go to sherylanjanette.com to learn more about her and more about the book. And she also is quite an entrepreneur too. She has more than 30 years of business experience as an accomplished entrepreneur and senior executive. She's the founder and CO engineered a wellness offering business and mindset programs for individuals and organizations through on site training, speaking and online learning in areas of impostor syndrome burnout and peak performance. She holds certifications across multiple business and mindset disciplines that are essential to individual and organizational health. These advanced trainings include cognitive behavioral neuroscience, integrative hypnotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming, clinical stress, anxiety and self regulation, strategy and human performance improvement. As a key thought leader in this area she speaks she shares her message with organizations globally on again for my listeners, here's the book. Well, this is a great place for us to shock start and that is for you. I think many people hear this word the imposter syndrome. They don't always know what it means. Why is it people important for people to recognize this inside of themselves and really the imposter syndrome?
Sheryl Anjanette
Yeah, I think it's always really helpful when we're having behaviors. We're having symptoms and things and we don't know where they're coming from. And when we can understand it, it's like somebody having a diagnosis, right? If you're going around and you're feeling really lousy, you're having trouble getting out of bed or that stomachache that just doesn't go away. If you have a diagnosis, you know what it is, then you can do something about it. And I think a lot of us that I spent most of my decades really of my life, walking around with all of these symptoms and not having a name for it. And not understanding what it really is because, you know, impostor syndrome, there are a lot of misunderstandings about what it is and I get into the myths a lot but you know, just not understanding what it actually is and that throws people off and they start going off in the wrong direction in their healing. And to really get to that healing, you need to be on the right path.
Greg Voisen
So, so you've had your own personal journey, like you're explaining and most authors do when they write books around topics, right? It's like this. I'm passionate about this. I want the world to know what was your personal journey and overcoming impostor syndrome and what are the key turning points for you? And I say overcoming and I'm gonna use that word, kind of lightly. I think it's really more about identifying, right what it is that we're doing, and then working to release that. So because you're grounded in all of these great things like neuro linguistic programming, and hypnotherapy, we know the subconscious mind is a big element to this. So I'd love to have you address that with the listeners.
Sheryl Anjanette
Sure. And if you don't mind, Greg, I'd love to just kind of go back and give impostor syndrome a definition.
Greg Voisen
Yeah, I'd love…
Sheryl Anjanette
to kind of get their heads around. So, imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern. Emphasis on pattern where someone feels like they're not good enough, despite evidence to the contrary. So it's patterned. It's habitual. And we don't always think about it this way. But it's not just our behaviors that become patterned our thoughts become patterns, our beliefs become habit and our self-talk becomes pattern. So there are all these layers going on. It became patterned on autopilot. And it's despite evidence to the contrary. So there's, there's evidence that we have all these accomplishments, and yet we still feel disconnected from them. So you can look at a piece of paper you can see your certifications or degrees. You get up and speak in front of an audience. You make these great movies, whatever your zone of genius says, you do it, you do it, you do it, you do it. And inside you feel it's like I know, I know. I know but I feel you feel like I'm a fraud. I'll never be able to do it again. I'm going to be found out someone's going to tap me on the shoulder at any moment and tell me that's not really you, you you're a fraud. You're a fake. And so it's just a cognitive dissonance. It's a disconnect. And it's really interesting because when we don't understand this, people often will say, it's just doubt. You're just having doubt and, or it's just your inner critic is being really harsh and all those things are part of it. It's like there's a collective of all these little things that happen. But you can have doubt and you can have a harsh inner critic, and still be able to be connected to your accomplishments and say, Yeah, I did it. I'm proud of that. And that's great. When you have that disconnect, when you feel like wildly inside like, Oh God, I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy. I'm not deserving nobody's gonna believe this. I don't care how many times I've done it. I don't care how many degrees I had. Everybody else in the room is better than me. I'll never live up to it. That's imposter syndrome view. And that's where the word comes. You're not actually an imposter. And nobody else thinks you're an impostor. It's that we feel like we are the imposter. Hence the name. The imposter lies within it lies within it's inside of us. And this is a liar. It's not true. You really do have those accomplishments. And so for me, I was in this journey of you know, I've been in the corporate world for decades, and I had done this really deep dive and for the past seven years I've been immersed in, in studying human emotions and behavior and I did a very advanced certification in hypnotherapy. So multiple types of hypnotherapy and cognitive behavioral neuroscience and clinical stress and anxiety and self regulation because I really, really like to help people and I was really doing this there was a deep dive and I was trying to help people get what they want. Which another word for that is manifestation, right? Get when I say I want this, but I'm not getting there. And I was working with groups and individuals and I was they were all saying, I'm doing all the things why isn't it working? And then I discovered Oh, this imposter syndrome. And I started to really look at it closely and I thought you know what, that's an umbrella term. For all the read things that happen. They get us throw us off track to getting what it is we're really well
Greg Voisen
I think that that inner critic is probably one of the biggest ones. I mean, most people that go through life, whether it will say this, they have an adverse childhood experience, or maybe it wasn't even adverse, but it was like, Hey, you were always supposed to be the straight A student. That's what we wanted. You are supposed to be the doctor. You are supposed to become the teacher. And when they did or they didn't, I've spoken with many who actually attained all those degrees, and at the same time, still live with the imposter syndrome. And then I've seen people who haven't attained to any of that and are living with the imposter syndrome as well because they didn't live up to those expectations. But in your book, you debunk debunk several myths about the imposter syndrome. Which myth do you find is the most pervasive and damaging and if so, why?
Sheryl Anjanette
Well, I talked about eight myths. If you don't mind, I'm gonna give you two. It's hard one. It's feel that fear and do it anyway, is the cure for impostor syndrome. Of course, you're afraid but just do the thing. And then you will, you'll be fine. And the imposter goes away, and you're good. Now, something like 85% of the population experiences impostor syndrome, and you're talking about very accomplished people like Albert Einstein, Tina Fey, Sheryl Sandberg, you know, Steve Martin, the list goes on and on and you know, seven or eight out of 10 people around you and depending on what your profession is, maybe more. And so if that were true, if you could just feel the fear and do it anyway. Do you think this people would still be experiencing impostor syndrome? No. They've got the fear. They push through. They've done it anyway. You have these great accomplishments. So that's, that's definitely part of the puzzle. That's part of getting to the point where you can overcome impostor syndrome. You do need to learn how to push through that fear. It's just not the cure, if that makes sense. And that can be damaging because people will say, and I've had people say this to me, Oh, I'm so relieved that you told me that Sheryl because I've felt the fear I did it anyway, I'm still experiencing this and I was told I'm not supposed to be experiencing anymore. And then they suppress that emotion and you know, it happens to suppressed emotions, right? Calm their energy in motion, and they come out in other ways. And I would say the second myth that I think is really important to debunk is it's just normal. Everyone has it, you just have to live with it. And if you really look at what the experience of impostor syndrome is, rumination, feeling less than playing small, you know, anxiety burnout. Why would we want to normalize that? Why would we want to say you just have to live with it. That's where it got really stubborn. And if 85% of people experience imposter syndrome, what does that tell me? It tells me it's very common, but there are 15% of the population that don't. So that means I want to be one of the 15% Why do I have to be part of the 85%? And that's what I sought out, sought out and said, Okay, well, we have to get to the root of this. There's stuff going on. We can't just cope. Because we'll be coping until we're 80 or 90 years old.
Greg Voisen
That's no question for you. You know, I know that many people. There's all this area around self compassion and self care. Yes. And one of the things that I think misses in most people who probably have this impostor syndrome, is this ability to self nurture self care, compassion for themselves, right? Because we're talking about well, I can give compassion to others. Well, are you giving the same compassion to yourself? And so you actually used I liked the fact that you pointed out those two debunked myths. But you also described different archetypes of imposter syndrome in the book. And I was wondering if you could elaborate on the archetypes now identifying with one could really help one of our listeners understand their impostor feelings better and how they might be able to use that archetype description to actually overcome it.
Sheryl Anjanette
Absolutely, Greg, happy to you know, I put together this framework because I think that it's not meant to label anyone. But it's this idea of having better insight into us. We can understand in broad terms, what impostor syndrome is, but if we don't see how it's affecting us in personally, each one of us differently, how do we do something about it? We're each on our own journey. We've had different experiences. We give different meaning to those experiences, those become our beliefs and those become our reality. And so I put this framework together and it's just a way for people to kind of see within themselves the behaviors, and then we can work back and see what the root causes. Now, if anybody's listening to this, there are seven of them. And you say, Oh, my God, I have more than one or I have three or I'm all seven. FYI. I had all seven. I was experiencing ever say I really have I don't have anything I experienced all seven. I say that because experience is so much easier to get over, right than something we have. I was experiencing all seven of these and so many of my clients and people on my panels in my groups have experienced all seven so nothing wrong with you. It's just a way for you to understand. So first, there's the perfectionist and I could go deep on any one of these but I'm going to give you the surface, the perfectionist and there's the self critical perfectionist then there's the other critical perfectionist and there's the cultural perfectionist where it comes from athletics versus but they see their value through their accomplishments and the quality of those accomplishments. Yeah, that's their value. Remember, we're always talking about impostor syndrome. It's you know, am I good enough? Am I worthy? Am I deserving? It's all about that value. Then the second one is the Lone Ranger and the Lone Ranger feels like they need to go it alone. They need to do everything by themselves. And part of that is they feel like if they ask someone for help, They're gonna see that they're not good enough to do it on their own. So there's feeling of I'm just gonna get in there and do it myself. There's more to that story, but that's a big one. There's the people pleaser, the people feel pleaser their feeling of pleasing is really connected to abandonment and rejected they feel like they're worth isn't pleasing everyone and maybe if they're very good and very nice and please everyone, they won't be abandoned or rejected. The fourth is this. and the Savior sees their work through fixing the other people or fixing problems. They need to be needed, which is much like the people pleaser. Again, they need to be needed because they fear abandonment and rejection. There's the superhero. So as superheroes a common archetype, we hear about it. They see their work through superhuman feats, you know, their biggest fear is being vulnerable or perceived as weak. And then the sixth is the Master the Master never feels good enough. They just need one more degree, one more certification to be quote unquote good enough. So their life is always achieving the next thing to be good enough a lot of comparison there. And then there's one that you may not have heard about or thought about, it's the Prodigy. The Prodigy is the archetype that feels like they need to go from zero to hero or beginner to mastery immediately. You know, we all have those zones of genius. There's things that we're able to master very quickly, very easily. And so we we kind of go into this comfort space, because we're, we get really good really fast, and then we get the accolades for that. And for the Prodigy, they want to stick in their comfort zone because that area that's kind of messy where you're on that learning curve, and you're learning something and you fall back and maybe you fail a little bit they're so terrified of being found out as not good enough. Seven.
Greg Voisen
Well, the good thing about you articulating those seven is that I think many of the listeners can relate to like you said, Well if not one or two, maybe all seven, you know, because at certain points in our life, we're going to take on potentially a different archetype, depending on where we are. And so I would say hey, get the book, everybody. Here it is. There's a copy of the book again. Because all of those archetypes are there. Plus she gives you opportunities by asking questions at the end of these chapters to kind of reflect and learn more. Now, you we talked earlier when I first said hey, the subconscious mind how does the subconscious mind play a role in the imposter syndrome? We know people will say, Well, I know the ego. You know, a lot of people use ego as edging God out. And I think sometimes when people become more spiritual in nature, they actually learn to calm these actual impostor syndrome, wherever it is coming from. So I'd like you to address the role of the subconscious mind and what strategies do you recommend for addressing subconscious beliefs? That have been embedded in the subconscious mind? And as you said earlier, they kind of continue to play out, they go over and over and over and over again, and people can't seem to get out of that loop. It's like, What What's that movie The Groundhog's Day? Yes. You know, it's Groundhog's Day again, but here it comes again. Right. So tell us if you would some of the ways you have to actually jolt it and change it. I mean, one of them is hypnosis. I literally had a hypnotherapy session on Sunday. Right. And so the point is, is I recognize that when somebody's professional can go in and make suggestions to reprogram that because the the three types which you talk about are, you know, the subconscious, the conscious and the unconscious. Right. And the superconscious Yeah, right. So it's, you've got this array and I think a lot of people understand it, they just don't know how it works. Yeah.
Sheryl Anjanette
Yeah, you know, this kind of goes into I've done a lot of work with the subconscious mind. Of course, being a Hypnotherapist. And you know, what happens with impostor syndrome is people tend to focus on what they can see what they're conscious that and that becomes about 10% of our consciousness is in the conscious what we call the conscious mind and 90% is in the subconscious and we put it in this Forget it, set it and forget it kind of mode for efficiency. And so what happens is we become programmed you notice like you program your computer, we can become programmed early on through our experiences and our beliefs and thoughts. That we have thoughts that others have, they get reinforced, and they kind of get set into our mind and they're usually triggered or tied to an initiating event. You know, it's kind of we call this a root cause. And so with the subconscious mind what the subconscious mind is, let's say you have an you're, you're a very young child and you have an experience and maybe it's not even an adverse experience. It's just it's not so much the experience that we have, but the meaning we give that to that experience at that age and that stage, we set it in in our mind is programmed to make ourselves right. So now our mind is actively looking and something has happened to we say OGC I'm really not good enough. And we start to layer and layer and layer. Oh, you see, nobody really cares what I have to say and we layer a layer and layer or you see, I don't have value, and I'm not worthy and we layer and layer there. And we hyper focus on those areas. And we tend to minimize the proof that evidence that we aren't good enough as we mature. And so you
Greg Voisen
said as a child and I want to go back to that because we're so impressionable at those ages, right? Of what actually happens in our life and I and I'm gonna use a quick little anecdote story because I think this might help the listeners know when I was around eight years old, I remember being in my kitchen and my father was extremely angry with my mother. And it got into a quite a fight in the sense that he actually pushed her up against the wall. And I did not want to see that happening. So I decided to get in between my father and my mother, because I was just trying to protect my mother. So this is probably a pretty typical thing that I think many young men could relate to. I did. My father got so angry with me. I'll get to the point of this story in a second that he picked me up and he was very strong and he shoved me against the wall. And he said, Don't you ever come in between an argument between myself and mom, and I literally fell to the floor now. moral to the story from that day forward, I decided to avoid conflict. Okay, so whenever conflict was in my life, I moved to a different direction, because I just didn't like it because I thought the consequence of it was so painful because it was extremely painful. So you think, look, I tell that story, not because I want you to just, you know, feel sorry for me or anything. I tell it because it's really truly when you're eight years old and something like that happens. It's really hard to get that out of your subconscious. It's really hard to get that out of your consciousness.
Sheryl Anjanette
He gets really embedded in there. Great. Thank you for sharing. By the way. You know, just this morning, I did a session with somebody and we went back to when he was four years old. He kept saying I want to go back to when I was 1717. But I knew there was a fragment that went further back and I've gone back as far as two years old, but usually it's somewhere between four and six that people's memory goes and these are very, very powerful because when you're very young, you're your nonverbal can't express those emotions. There's deer just all squishy feeling and emotion. And our subconscious is the seat of our emotions and it does drive the bus. It does drive the bus. So when I was looking at imposter syndrome, and I'm seeing all these great people doing this work here, and working with all these amazing coping techniques and what have you, I thought something's still missing here because they're showing people how to cope better, but they're not showing people how to overcome impostor syndrome. I know that's a bold statement, but I thought what we really need is to reprogram and repattern inside out is the reprogramming let's get to those root cause issues. Let's remodel those receptors. And then we need to repattern the mind because yes, this takes a little bit longer than may have to be done in simultaneity. However, the mind the brain does get pattern we do get pattern with our not just our behaviors that our beliefs thought self talk, and so we need to actually do a focus conscious re patterning. It's really a process that is doable. That's the hope I give. And so that's my holistic approach. Inside Out outside in working with the subconscious mind understanding how powerful it is, and that it is your best friend. It wants you to succeed. It wants to give you whatever you want, as long as you can communicate what that is and we just don't communicate clearly.
Greg Voisen
So you give the readers in the book, The you include these exercises to help the reader and maybe exercises is a good word is a good word. And the point is is I think free programming to help the readers overcome the imposter syndrome. I'd like for you to share two of the exercise that you think the listeners listening today could actually apply to reprogram and to practice, right? Yes, they're their exercises, right? So it's like you're trying to build a muscle or the muscle is the brain. We're trying to reprogram the brain. Yes to actually transmute these particular elements of our imposter syndrome.
Sheryl Anjanette
Yeah, yeah. By the way, in the book, it takes you through four distinct phases. So you're gonna go from awareness. We don't know what we don't know even when we think we do to insight that was sort of the archetypes the idea of really understanding how it affects you. And now we're kind of in the alignment phase. And by the end there are exercises throughout so there are 20 exercises through the book and in the alignment piece, which is what you're talking about. It's doing these exercises now doing the reprogramming is always going to be easier when you're working with someone so if you can have a trained hypnotherapist a really good one. You can always I don't recommend other people I do that I do the work but you can probably find people to recommend to you as well. That's always helpful to have a guide. But if not getting into kind of a deep guided meditation is very helpful. And trust yourself. Ask your subconscious mind to take you back. First you want to set the ground rules and that is that you never go into a trauma. I do not believe that you ever need to relive a trauma so you ask your subconscious mind to take you before or after trauma, never in a trauma. And if you see it you're seeing it like a movie. So it's on the screen and you are safe. You are okay. You will be fine and you tell yourself that and if you need a guided meditation for it, that's fine. But if you're going to do this on your own, you don't need to go into that you're past it, you're done with it. Now you're just kind of understanding it with your cognitive mind, not your emotional mind. That's really important. And then you just get really quiet with yourself and trust your subconscious to take yourself back and ask for an early stage as a root cause why do I feel not good enough? back as early as you can, and talk to that child you know, you can have a conversation. Usually children didn't get something they needed like nurturing or kindness, you know, or just a listening generous here. Or they got something they should have got, like abuse or neglect. And so you just give that child what they need it. You're the adult now you get to do that. You talk to them like you their mother or their father or their big brother, big sister or whoever that is that they needed and ask them what they needed. And just listen to them. You know, and that's the reprogramming the that's a very just once.
Greg Voisen
One of the things that I think you don't want to do is I'm just going to make a comment has nothing to do with it is you certainly don't want to carry around regret or anger or frustration for what happens. So you've got to find a way as you're saying, This isn't past life regression. This is just regression back to a point where you can remember these things, not the trauma, as you said, but the actual things before and afterwards and the healing comes. And I think in the acceptance of that versus the resistance to it. Right. So I think for a long time. I know for me personally, I had resistance to it, not acceptance of it. Right. So if there was an event that I didn't like, I was like resisting. Right? And I know that all of those were good for me, right? It's like these are all learning lessons. But you only know these when you as you said become aware you and your steps aware that they're there for a reason. Right? There's a reason for all of these things. There's a reason for me getting in between my mom and my dad and me going through this conflict where I didn't want to get involved with conflict. So I just tell the listeners that are listening now. It's you have to learn how to accept it.
Sheryl Anjanette
Yes, you know what's kind of like the analogy would be you have a dark closet and you're afraid you're afraid there's monsters in the closet and then when you turn on the light or shine a flashlight and you see it's just close, there's nothing else there maybe some toys, you're good. And it's the same thing with our subconscious mind. You didn't feel that fear. You didn't want to turn the other way. You're not gonna want to go there. But when you do and we can not go into into any adverse experiences that be traumatic, but just looking at it and shining the light. You'll see it's not that bad. Right? What happens is you're able to express those heavy emotions and get rid of that. Release them and you'll feel lighter and the awareness starts to grow. Then you heal and you observe
Greg Voisen
What would you say are some of the long term strategies for maintaining an impostor free..
Sheryl Anjanette
Oh, this is the best part..
Greg Voisen
After initially overcoming these feelings? I mean, what I mean, it's one thing to talk about these things. It's another thing for us to embed them in our DNA for it to become part of us, and for us to live it and believe it and I would say that it becomes our truth. Right so this is the truth for me. What is the new big T, as I say, in my life? What are some of these long term strategies?
Sheryl Anjanette
Yeah, so the most important thing I'm going to tell you today is this. There's a term I coined it's chapter five in my book called The healthy self. And I want you to understand what you don't think of a circle here in the middle, right? And outside that the circle is what we're going to call maladaptive territory, and this circle is your healthy zone. And the reason it's a circle and not a dot. A big spot is because we're dynamic beings we're meant to feel and experience and we need some movement and growth. But we need to be able to be adaptive in that. So fear is our friend we need fear keeps us safe. If we had no fear we'd run into the lions den. Not goodly jump off a cliff, right? Not good. without a parachute, let's say. So we need fear. We need to help downside to certain vessel we need comparison. How do we know who we are? We don't know who we're not. Sometimes we are not good enough. We understand that mentally. So I'm not a good enough neurosurgeon to cut into your brain. In fact, I'm not a neurosurgeon at all. So if he asked me to do brain surgery on you, I would say I'm not right. I'm always good enough. I'm not good enough for certain things.
Greg Voisen
Well, you're doing weird surgery on people without using instruments, right? It's not like you're cutting or you're probing. You're probing verbally your program with great questions, but you are a brain surgeon in the degree that you get people to to look at it in a different way. And that is brain surgery. Because most people don't need brain surgery, meaning physical surgery. They need emotional brain surgery. Yeah, and you're the emotional brain surgeon.
Sheryl Anjanette
Yeah. Circuits reconnected. And so what happens is we become familiar and you know, we tend to see familiarity and safety as the same thing. So something is very familiar, even if it's not safe. Our mind has this same it kind of goes back to those caveman days, right? We tried to stay safe. Our mind wants to keep us safe. And so if we're out here in maladaptive territory, it's become so familiar. We tend to want to stick there. And first thing we need to do is understand what is actually healthy with fear and what is it we need to get back into the zone and kind of get a feel for it, and say, This is not good, this kind of this kind of doubt that paralyzes me. That's a maladaptive doubt. But doubt in the health is out and says, Okay, wait, let's just check this guy out. Let's check this woman out. Let's check this opportunity out. I'm pretty sure it sounds really good. But they're saying, but I want to poke some holes and I want to learn some other perspectives. Maybe it's I'm not seeing everything that's helped you doubt, doubt or doubt that I can do something. Let's see. I've never done that thing before. I've never climbed Mount Everest. Maybe I think I can, but I doubt that I'm ready right now. That's healthy doubt. Maybe I need to do some training. So that's what healthy doubt is paralyzing doubt is where I go. I can't do that. If I never do that thing. And you literally are paralyzed. You don't. You don't move forward. You play small you pass up on opportunities. No, maybe you just need to get back into a healthy zone. And if it's something you really want to do, you get the resources you did the training, you get the knowledge, you bind a way to get yourself to that place. So first we have to do is get a sense of that. And then something will happen. You know, great. You'll get that call and somebody you love is ill or something terrible. Have you lost that claim your life that job? And it's like a pendulum you want to swing out to the maladaptive territory, but now you know how to work with your mind. You know how to work with some different coping strategies do you have and you just get it back into is oxygen is now. Now you know, and that's how you overcome impostor syndrome. Yeah, I'm gonna feel like oh, maybe I'm not good enough. But I'm gonna work with my mind. I'm gonna get myself into the healthy self.
Greg Voisen
Well, I think one of the things that you're saying and it's very clear, I was reflecting on a book called The uncertainty by Jonathan fields. And one of the things he said in a podcast was, you have to walk through uncertainty to get the opportunity. And I think, you know, there's lots of opportunity for people to identify what this is, and then walk through and mentally change their perspective and their mindset around this imposter syndrome. You don't have to live with this and Sheryl is the person that you can go to. And again, we'll put a link to the website for her and a link to the book on Amazon. I would encourage you all to get a copy of this because the way it's laid out, is very unique. I like the layout of the book. It's an easy read, it's not taught, and the practices and the exercises that you can get will really help you. So it's been a pleasure having you on inside personal growth. And being able to get some of your wisdom around the imposter that lies within us. And thank you for being a guest on the show. Any last words of wisdom you want to leave with the listeners?
Sheryl Anjanette
Thank you so much. Great. It's been fantastic. You know, I will just tell you by the way you do have that if you go to my website, there is an impostor syndrome. And there is also an audio book out, but I just want to say this and I want you to hear this wherever you are, whether you're in the car, whether you're sitting at your desk, wherever you are in your life right now, you are good enough. You are worthy. You. are deserving, your voice matters. And you matter.
Greg Voisen
That way to end it. Thank you very much. Appreciate that.
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