471: Is Career Change The Cure For Imposter Syndrome?

Doubting yourself? Figure out whether you're in the right role experiencing imposter syndrome or in the wrong role and you’re actually an imposter.

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When you accept a role, you are prepared to commit your time, energy, and expertise in exchange for certain rewards like income, professional growth, and feeding your passion. But what if the expectation you had coming into the role is not what the role turned out to be? Do you “fake it ‘til you make it?” Your ego is telling you, “I should want this.” But your gut feeling is telling you something is wrong. This is the time to ask what’s really going on. 

If you find yourself feeling negative about your work, unfocused, procrastinating, downplaying your achievements…if you start to question why you get up in the morning, it may be time to accept that you need to make a change. It’s time to figure out whether you are in the right role experiencing imposter syndrome or if you’re in the wrong role and you’re actually an imposter. On this team episode, Cindy & Kate discuss how to know if you’re in the right role & the truth behind imposter syndrome.

What you’ll learN

  • How to differentiate imposter syndrome from a role that’s wrong for you
  • Why using your strengths is so important in identifying your ideal role 
  • How feelings of being an imposter can help you evaluate your career trajectory

Kate Wilkes 00:01

It's like, you have this sense of self doubt related to, like, your work or your life accomplishments, like you've done these things, and you're just feeling like a faker. You think it's luck. You don't ever attribute it to your own abilities and your own skills.

Introduction 00:22

This is the Happen To Your Career podcast, with Scott Anthony Barlow. We help you stop doing work that doesn't fit you, figure out what does and make it happen. We help you define the work that's unapologetically you, and then go get it. If you're ready to make a change, keep listening. Here's Scott. Here's Scott. Here's Scott.

Scott Anthony Barlow 00:47

Okay, it's Scott. But you're not going to hear from me in this episode, because I'm taking some of our HTYC advice, and I'm stepping away from work. And this time for an entire month to be able to spend time with my family, and unplug. So I'm not going to be on this episode, or the next few. I am leaving you in great hands, of the Happen To Your Career podcast team, I know you're gonna love it.

Cindy Gonos 01:08

Hey everybody, it's Cindy. I am back for another HTYC team episode. Scott is still in Greece. So we are still taking over the podcast. Today, I am super, super, super stoked to have Kate who is our Chief People Officer here at HTYC. With Me, Kate, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us a little about yourself.

Kate Wilkes 01:30

Oh yeah, the dreaded question of tell us about yourself. Thanks for that one. That was really nice.

Cindy Gonos 01:34

I already feel you. I want everybody else to get to know you better.

Kate Wilkes 01:38

You do know me. Don't tell everybody that we're work besties because it'll make our other work besties really jealous about us. So yeah, I work with the team. I help Scott out on a lot of stuff so that he can do big things. And they gave me a fancy title, it's called Chief People Officer. I don't know why I gotta say it funky. I just do. But no, I'm excited. I'm not sure the world is ready for us, yeah, but we're gonna do it anyway.

Cindy Gonos 02:02

They're here. They're ready. So just to remind everybody, I'm Cindy. I'm the Director of Client Success, aka usually the first person that you talk to here at HTYC. So Kate, I want to tell you about this dream I had. Do you want to hear about this dream I had? And I think that everybody may be able to kind of relate to this. But I've been having this recurring dream, right. So I'm like, waking up in the middle of night in a cold sweat. It's a nightmare. Like it's recurring. And I'm having it all the time. So I'm here in this large, sterile board room, right? And I am surrounded by a bunch of like, old white dudes in, like, black suits, like, men in black type suits. And for some reason, I am also, myself, an old white dude in a black suit. Right?

Kate Wilkes 02:48

Of course.

Cindy Gonos 02:49

Of course. Because it's my worst nightmare. For any of you that don't know, I am not an old white man. I'm a middle aged white lady. But so I'm in this room, and then all of a sudden, the man next to me, a table, he stands up, and he says, "I've solved the mystery of why our business has been failing." And just like the ending of every Scooby Doo episode ever, he proclaimed, "We have an impostor." And he turns and then he rips off my old man mask. Right? And there I am. And now I don't have a black suit on. I need it, but I have this red nose and like the clown suit, right? Like I'm dressed as a clown. And I look around the room and everybody is just staring at me. And in my gut, I'm like, "I know what they know, man. I don't belong here." And I got up and I shook my fist and like Scooby Doo style, and I say, "I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids."

Kate Wilkes 03:52

Meddling kids.

Cindy Gonos 03:54

What is that about, Kate? Tell me what that is about.

Kate Wilkes 03:58

Oh, you got the imposter syndrome. That's like my worst nightmare. I have it right now. I have it every day.

Cindy Gonos 04:07

So you know we're going to be talking about impostor syndrome. So you've done some research, right? Well, you know some things. So Kate, tell us what you know about imposter syndrome, which you found out.

Kate Wilkes 04:18

Yeah, I've always felt like a bit of an imposter myself. So digging into the why behind it or the reasons that we have it was really eye opening and people that you don't even expect to be imposter have imposter syndrome habits. So yeah, it was exciting to read. And I was just like, every time I was reading something new about it, it's like, you have this sense of self doubt related to, like, your work or your life accomplishments, like you've done these things, and you're just feeling like a faker. Like it's not even because you're awesome that you did these things. You think it's luck, or you know, you don't think it's... you don't ever attribute it to your own abilities and your own skills. So come to find out 70% of us... 70% of us have felt like an impostor at some point. And I even came across an article about Tom Hanks, Emmy Award winning, Master of the big screen, sitting at his house. And he's thinking that we're going to find him out. So even though imposter syndrome is more common in women, there are men, even famous men, even famous old white men, (sorry, Tom, you're not old, you're just older) have this, where you feel like you're gonna have your mask ripped off of your face, right? And it's so uncomfortable to live in that space. You can get burned out, if you stay there if you allow yourself to stay there.

Cindy Gonos 05:58

I hear that for sure. I know a time when that happened to me in real life where I recognized it, right, I was able to recognize that it was imposter syndrome, like right there in the moment. And so I was doing... It was my last interview with the final boss. We'll just call him the final boss. Right? So I'm feeling really confident, like we're chatting, there's a lot of head nodding, and you know the head nodding, like, that's a good thing in an interview. And I was feeling really good. And then all of a sudden, he stopped me. And he said, "What books have you read?" I'm like "Books?" He's like, "Yeah, you know, business books. You know, Think and Grow Rich, Start With Why." And my head is buzzing and I'm thinking, okay, I'm trying to think of books that I've read, business books, he's talking about sales books, all this stuff. And I'm thinking, "He's asking me about this. Why is he asking me about all of these things?" I'm just talking about how I build relationships and how I motivate teams and stuff like that. So I'm like, in my head, screaming, "Cindy!"

Kate Wilkes 07:05

Think of one book.

Cindy Gonos 07:07

Ever read a sales book in your life? Say it now. Say the name of it. I don't even know the name of any sales book. So I was honest, right. So I said, "I don't think I've ever read any sales books." He was shocked, "Never read any sales books?" I shook my head, "No, no. Sales books, leadership books. No." And he said, "How can that be?" I didn't know what to say, so I just shrugged. Right. So I'm trying to play cool. But I'm getting a little bit nervous. Because he's talking about well, "How do you know the strategies? How do you know all these techniques? All these things that we've been talking about, if you haven't read these books?" And he picks up my resume. And he's looking at me, he's looking even more confused. And I'm thinking in my head, "Oh God, what is he looking for?"

Kate Wilkes 07:52

He's trying to connect the dots.

Cindy Gonos 07:54

I guess. In my head, though, the self doubt starts creeping in. And I'm thinking, "Okay, this is when it's going to happen. He's gonna see on my resume that I don't have a college degree. I didn't know any of the books he was talking about." Like, the classic imposter syndrome. I felt like it was. And I pause for a moment, I got my stuff together. And I got it. And I thought to myself, "I know exactly why I'm here. I know exactly how I got here." And now that I'm supposed to be here. And I got my little devilish grin on my face. And I just told him, I said, "You know what? I can tell you exactly how I learned all of this, and how I know all of this." And then, so it began. And that was my fleeting moment with imposter syndrome, right, where I knew I was like, "No. Dude, you're just having imposter syndrome." Have you had that? Have you had that happen to you?

Kate Wilkes 08:47

Yes. I mean, I think I'm the poster child for imposter syndrome. And I think to this very day, in my role working so closely with Scott, I'll always start to say, "Well, I'm not used to doing this or have never done that." And he'll say, "Well, I can give you bullet points of all of the times you've done things equally as good or greater than that. So stop doubting yourself." And you can hear that and you can say, "Yeah, I'm not really a guy under a mask. There's no Scooby Doo moment about to happen here." But I have felt it, you know. Especially when you are in the administrative world where you're assisting other people or teams, you're the last voice to be heard. You know, you have big ideas, but nobody ever cares. So when I joined the team here at Happen To Your Career a couple of years ago, I sat down at the table with the big kids. And even as an admin, you know, Scott looks at me and starts asking me what I think and what my input is. And I'm having that moment of panic in my head, like anything you say, can and will be stupid, like, I have nothing to contribute here. I had to learn how to like, get over that and just say my ideas and turns out, some of them are really great. But if you don't let yourself get out of your own head, and just realize that you do have contributions to make, you do have great ideas, like you could totally live in a place of constantly feeling like you're wearing a mask when you're not. And it just gets you down.

Cindy Gonos 10:30

Yeah, of course, I work with you all the time. And it sounds like especially in this environment, you are able to overcome, there are ways that you found to overcome that imposter syndrome, right? And I think there's this misconception that when you have imposter syndrome, it's something, like, that anytime you have self doubt, that's what it is. Or any type of question, that it must be imposter syndrome. So I started to ask the question, because I've been doing some research on this myself, what if it's not imposter syndrome? Right? What if you are an impostor? And I know that sounds really intense impostor, right? Sounds like you don't belong there. But what if you don't? Right? What if you find yourself in a situation where the role or the organization is not what you expected it to be and you're just not in the right place? By definition, that would make you an impostor. Right?

Kate Wilkes 11:32

Yeah. Have you ever found yourself there?

Cindy Gonos 11:36

Yeah, I have found myself there a number of times, actually, to be honest. But I can think of one time where somebody else had to tell me, I guess, in so many words. So I worked for an organization and I went in there as a leader. And my biggest problem, Kate, was that business was booming, right? So this was... I had moved on from my role with a final boss, I was really excited to make a really big meaningful impact in my new org. And I had everything, I had all the things on my resume, the skills, you know. I was the top performer. I was getting awesome reviews from my leaders, my team was engaged, I was facilitating and leading trainings for other of my peers, like everything was going exactly the way that I was supposed to be, right, on paper, everything was going the way that it was supposed to be, I should have been ecstatic. But it didn't matter. Like no matter how many new processes I created, or how many goals I hit, how many successes I had. It didn't feel good enough. And I was working, like, overdrive to overcome all the areas that I had considered my weak spots. But then all of a sudden, everything was feeling like a struggle. And I'm thinking, "Okay, it's just a matter of time until somebody finds out that I should not be in this role." One of my girlfriends, and she's like, "Oh, you're crazy. You're crazy. You're doing an amazing job. You're just having some doubts." You know imposter syndrome, right? So I could have just dismissed it like that. How do we get it, right? So I was thinking back like my final interview, and, you know, I looked up some ways to overcome imposter syndrome and, and all of that, but then I was not getting what I wanted. So I talked to the one person who knows all the things, in my opinion, and that was my dad. So my dad is like, I like to call my dad like blue collar, Obi Wan Kenobi, like my dad just knows all of the things. So shout out to my dad, if he's listening. So I'm talking to my dad, told him this situation, and he just like, really, plain as day, he just asks me, "Well, what if it's just you?" "Does it, what?" He's like, "What if it's just you? Like, what if it's not the role? It's just you don't belong in that role. Like, what if it's that?" He doesn't know anything about imposter syndrome, or, you know, he's not, like, savvy with stuff. But my brain exploded. I was like, "Whoa, wait, yeah. Maybe it was. Maybe I wasn't supposed to be in this role." Right? And I'm thinking about, hey, you know, what's my favorite movie of all time? Jurassic Park. So I'm hearing Jeff Goldblum in my head, I know right, "Oh my God, we were so preoccupied on whether or not we could that we didn't stop to think if we should." We do that so much. So sometimes you just have to take a step back and say, "Maybe it's not imposter syndrome. Maybe I'm an impostor." So for you, I struggled a little bit with imposter syndrome. But tell me a time when you've been the impostor.

Kate Wilkes 14:44

Oh, this is a great one. I was so young. And let's go way back. Let's age ourselves a little bit here. Let's go way back to age myself. Okay. So by the way people, Cindy is just about my age. So I'm aging both of us. So we're going back to the late 90s. I think it was 1997. I had the opportunity with my ex husband to move to Mexico. We didn't have kids, we had dogs, we piled them in the Honda and we drove to Mexico, the whole thing seemed like a big imposter syndrome. The company was paying for us to move. He was going to go teach the people how to do the work at the factory that he worked at. So I'm just living my best life, right? Playing golf with my girlfriend, and, you know, whatever. And a friend of a friend of ours came up to us at dinner one night, and she said, "Your Spanish is getting really good. We have an opening at the school for a Spanish teacher." And I'm like, "What? You want me to do what?" like, she said, my Spanish was getting good, but like my biggest phrases were like, besides curse words, because the first thing everyone teaches you when you move to Mexico is how to curse because they think it's so funny that all you can do is curse, like, my husband would not teach me real Spanish because he just wanted to see me curse. Hilarious. But to me, I was not the person to teach Spanish or to teach English to Spanish speaking people, because I was saying things like, "No habla espanol." Like that was my go to. And "dónde está el baño" because if you go to a restaurant or a Walmart, and you can't find that, like, you have to ask people, so I was not ripping out these big sentences and paragraphs and having a lot of conversational Spanish, it was very small. And then they gave me a job. And they gave me an office. And they gave me students, and it was executives who, you know, ran big companies in Mexico. And they were going to be coming to the United States for work with their families. And so, you know, all the kids had to learn English, or the mom and dad had to learn English. And I was here to teach them. And I remember sitting down that first day and thinking, "What am I doing here?" I had like, my pencils and my paper and my dry erase markers. And I was just like, "We're not even going to get past hello, how are you, I'm fine, thanks. Like it's not going to happen." And I'm a "fake it 'till you make it" kind of girl. So I definitely was like, they asked me to be here for a reason, I'm going to do my best and then try. So I did it for a few weeks. And every day got harder because I was more in my impostor fields. I was more like, starting to think like, really, these people paid me money for this. And I feel like, you know, I'm not giving them the best of anything. So, although they never fired me, they never said "you need to do better", my Spanish did improve just by existing in that space every day. I got to a point where I was like, "Listen, I've got to go back. This is not for me." Because every moment.... if you doubt every moment of your existence, because you know that you're not the best quote unquote "the best person" for the job, it would eat you up. So I was exhausted from, like, trying to practice at night and lesson plan. I might not be a teacher by a longshot. So I had to peace out. I was like, "I love you. Thank you."

Cindy Gonos 18:18

All the Spanish words you know at that point.

Kate Wilkes 18:22

Exactly. And it's not a good feeling. But once you realize, and you're like, "Okay, this is the deal. This is the actual deal. I am an impostor. I am a faker. I'm a poser. Okay, now I'm gonna walk away and do something that oh my gosh, it feels like I'm living in the right space." So that was super fun.

Cindy Gonos 18:42

Yeah, I think that's a great point to bring up. Because it makes it harder when you have people who are telling you, "oh, you're totally doing a great job." So it's not, yeah, it's about well, how do you feel about it, right? Because they don't know. Especially if they think you're doing a good job, you're probably not outwardly showing them how much drudgery you're feeling while you're going through.

Kate Wilkes 19:04

I was panicking quietly in my office.

Cindy Gonos 19:07

You're freaking out. Right? So okay, so if you are still feeling like you don't know, right? Is it imposter syndrome? Am I impostor? There are some ways that you can find out, right? Okay. There's some questions that you can ask yourself, if you're in a situation where you're starting to question, "is this imposter syndrome? Or do I really need to get the heck out of dodge? This is the wrong place for me." So what are some of the things? Let's kind of help the people, Kate, that's what we're here to do. Right?

Kate Wilkes 19:39

Absolutely.

Cindy Gonos 19:40

Help the folks figure out what are some of the questions that they can ask. So.

Kate Wilkes 19:44

Yeah, I think the first thing you have to ask yourself is "Am I using my strengths to my living and working in my strengths every day?" Because when we're doing things that we're naturally good at without even trying and we can even maybe lean into those and up our game there a little bit, then you're never going to feel as much as an imposter. Some of us will always have that. Because, no, we're always a little bit afraid. But when you're working in those strengths and doing those things that you know, like, "I kick ass at this. I'm good at this." Then that's, like, puts you in the zone and you feel so much more confident about your work and yourself.

Cindy Gonos 20:21

Yeah, totally. I think that's a great point. You can kind of feel it, you can feel it when you're there. Right? Like, okay, this is... strengths are tricky, right? I always tell folks this when I talk to them, because strengths are the things that were naturally good at. So sometimes we dismiss our strengths and recognize them. You know, if something comes with too much ease, if something's too easy, we don't usually look at it as a strength. We usually, "Oh, that's an easy thing."

Kate Wilkes 20:46

We feel like cheater pants because we must be lucky.

Cindy Gonos 20:50

Yeah. So the question is, do I feel like I have a level of mushroom while I'm doing this? Because if so, you're probably seeing your strengths, right? That's kind of how you get in the lit up Mario. Wow. Okay, just dated myself again, not talking about those Mario brothers anymore, whatever the games are. Okay, what else? Like what else can people ask themselves? So am I using my strengths daily? What else?

Kate Wilkes 21:12

I think also, you have to ask if your role that you're in allows you to grow and develop.

Cindy Gonos 21:17

Yes, I think that you, Kate, are a really great example of why you should not ever have imposter syndrome. Because when you came on board, the team, you were our executive assistant. Right? So you are not pigeon holed, you've had an opportunity. So coming in as an EA, tell me just a couple of the things that you have got to do.

Kate Wilkes 21:39

Oh, gosh.

Cindy Gonos 21:39

As a part of your role here at HTYC, as our EA than a typical EA would not get an opportunity to get to do.

Kate Wilkes 21:47

Yeah, everything. Everything. We live in this wild space as a small company that's grown a lot these last couple of years, where we're still a few people trying to do great things, a lot of great things with big goals. So on week three, or four, when I'm just getting into the groove with Scott as the CEO, and my boss, and he says, "Hey, we need some help with this website stuff, because we don't have anybody really on the team, and we've got stuff going wrong." And he says, "Hey, our audio guy, our content guy is really just going to pull back the reins and do some other work that he needs to do. And I need you to dip a toe there and write some content and work on the podcast." And so I'm just like, "What is happening? What is happening here? How am I supposed to do these things I have?" Of course, I'm a worker, right? Like, I'm a worker bee. So if you ask me to do something, I'm gonna go "sure I know nothing about that. Let me go try it." Even with all the fears inside, so, I assume in the time that I've been here, I've basically learned the whole business, which has been wonderful to even work with a company that would allow anybody to know the whole business, which we all really do well here. But so, you know, it becomes a place that you go to where you're eventually not afraid to try new things. But also, you're just willing to lean into whatever strengths you have that might apply to, you know, might apply to something, and like you get your confidence up when you try those new things. But, you know, sometimes that little imposter syndrome guy sits on your shoulder, and he says, "why are you doing this? Well, you know, you're not qualified to do this." But you can do it anyway.

Cindy Gonos 23:42

Yeah. So I think when you find yourself in a space where, I guess first and foremost, you kind of have to ask yourself, "Where do I want to grow? And where do I want to develop?" Right? So if you find yourself in that situation where you're like, "I don't know if it's imposter syndrome, or I don't know if I'm an imposter", ask yourself. If I am to grow, what do I want that to look like? And am I in a place here where I'm able to do that? So, you know, with your role, you had an opportunity to try out a lot of different hats here. And when it came time before it was dubbed Chief People Officer, I remember that you and Scott sat down and you guys talked about your strengths and where you really shine and where you really make an impact on the team and where you really love to be. And you grew into that and you grew there and you got there and now you're the CPO, right? So I think that you have to ask yourself, you don't have to be the CEO, but you do have to ask yourself, "Okay, is growth and development important to me? And if so, am I able to do that here?" And if I'm not, that doesn't mean that you have imposter syndrome.

Kate Wilkes 24:50

Right.

Cindy Gonos 24:51

That means DTFO. Right?

Kate Wilkes 24:54

If you're trying to make your peg fit into a whole different shape, and you're just trying to, you know, drive it home and make it work, maybe you are an imposter. Maybe it just doesn't match up.

Cindy Gonos 25:05

Yeah. So what is one other... we'll give the folks one other question. There are more. There's a way to get them. But tell us one more, Kate. One more question to ask yourself, if you're up to.

Kate Wilkes 25:16

I think it's really important to ask yourself, if you're at the end of the day, if you're fulfilled by the work that you do, because if you're an impostor, like for real for real, you are probably not going to feel that sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, because you can barely keep up. You're back here researching how to do the things that somebody in that role maybe should already know how to do and you're trying to train yourself up, you're not going to feel a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment as one would if you are in a role that you were meant to be in doing the things and the areas that you're meant to do them in.

Cindy Gonos 25:53

Yeah, I think that's a really great point. So I mean, I know lots of... we work really hard. There's lots of days when I'm tired. When I get done with work, I'm tired. My voice is gone. I know it's good. My husband knows that I've had a productive day when I can't talk at the end of the day, because I've done it so much during the day.

Kate Wilkes 26:09

That's right.

Cindy Gonos 26:10

I think there's a big difference between being tired and fulfilled, and being empty. It's like a different kind of tired, right? Like tired was a, like, human is like this beautiful sigh that just like *sigh* and like the other one is like "ugh", at the end of the day, right?

Kate Wilkes 26:28

Right in the "ugh" it's so much more painful, because you know it's just going to come back again tomorrow. And you have to make yourself go to bed and get back up in the morning and trudge into that "ugh" again. So you know, the first thing I do if I feel like I'm an imposter is try to get myself out of that space and go find something I love.

Cindy Gonos 26:50

Yeah. I think that's a really good thing to do. Because I think too, we get in that mindset of "Just keep going. Just keep going. Just keep going." Right? I saw some articles about overcoming impostor syndrome and using it as a challenge. You said, "you fake it 'till you make it", right. And I think there's a time and place to fake it till you make it. So I think it's a really short amount of time to do that. And then to be able to figure out, "Okay, what's the real deal here? I've been a faker for so long." So...

Kate Wilkes 27:22

I got a job one time with a huge payroll company, they asked me in the interview, "What is my level of Excel... what level of competency I had with Excel?" And I had never used it, but I got in there. And I, by golly, in the first, like, few weeks, figured out how to be a master at Excel. But all of the other things in the role were things that were my strengths, but I did it, I learned that thing. And I really succeeded in that role for several years. Because the rest of it, I didn't have to fake until I make, you know, it's like that one little piece or whatever.

Cindy Gonos 27:54

Yeah, I think you brought up a really good point just now, when you said that you succeeded in that role for a few years. But then it was time to move on. So I think that's the other thing, too, is being someplace for a long time does not make you exempt from being an imposter.

Kate Wilkes 28:09

No, not at all.

Cindy Gonos 28:10

Like, it's not make you exempt from being an impostor at all. So imposter syndrome, I know, by definition, it's you doubt your abilities, and you doubt that you deserve things. And, you know, I think there's elements of that that come along with being an imposter as well. But I think the big difference between the two is, if your heart's not in it, then you're probably an impostor. And if your heart's in it, and you have doubts, you probably just have a little bit of self doubt and imposter syndrome. So it can be tricky. And I think a lot of folks struggle with it. I think more folks struggle with trying to figure out if they have impostor syndrome than actually trying to figure out if they need to make a move into something that's more meaningful, or that would make them happier.

Kate Wilkes 28:59

Absolutely. And I think we, often as a society, especially here in the US, we put the old American Dream first, the work hard every day, you don't have to love your job, but you got to make money and you gotta put the roof over the house and all that. And instead of doing work you love, that you might actually be better at, that you might actually could make more money at, you know, instead of just trudging through life.

Cindy Gonos 29:24

Yeah, I hear that for sure. But you know, I talk with folks every single day, who… they don't say that they have imposter syndrome or hear it, right. So I chatted with a lady today. I will not say her name, but she was amazing. And I adored her and we had the greatest conversation. And we started talking about strengths. And I was commenting on how she had a really great mix of the top five strengths and all the different categories. And she said "Yeah, that means that I'm not really a master at any of these strengths." No. I was like, "What that means is you are amazing at every single one of these things." Right? But she couldn't see it. She couldn't see it.

Kate Wilkes 30:09

Those were her superpowers.

Cindy Gonos 30:11

Yeah, no, wait, back up. Yes, you're amazing at these. That's why they're your strengths. So I love that you said that's the first question to ask too, is, am I using my strengths? Because I think once you know what you're good at, and you know what... I love the term fills your bucket, right? My man used to say that, fill your bucket up. So that's what we're looking for. We want you to have, like, we want you to have whatever it is that fills up your bucket in that way. So, Kate, I've had an awesome time talking to you.

Kate Wilkes 30:41

This was super fun.

Cindy Gonos 30:42

Amazing. They may never let us do it again. This... you may not ever hear Kate and I on the podcast together. But I think we have more, right? We have more to share with you folks.

Kate Wilkes 30:53

We do, we have more.

Cindy Gonos 30:54

So there are some other questions that you can ask if you have doubts about whether or not you have imposter syndrome, or you are indeed an impostor. So there's lots of questions, questions that we didn't have enough time to talk about today. But I will give them to you. I'm not shy. I will give you all the things. So if you want to know what the questions are to ask yourself, or you want some more resources about, how do I use my strengths? Or how do I know if I'm an impostor? Or if I have imposter syndrome? Or if you want to read my article, that's fine. Send me an email. Normally, people get to email Scott. But today, you guys get to email me and I have some goodies for you. So if you email cindy@happentoyourcareer.com and you put "Impostor" in the subject line, I will send you all of those resources and the questions that you can ask yourself. And if you still don't know, right, if you still don't know after I give you all the resources, we can chat about it, you can reach out, we can set up a time to talk, you can tell me about your situation, I can help you figure it out. And if you find that you are an impostor, that's okay, that's it's totally okay, and you can make a change. And if you find that it's imposter syndrome, that's okay, too. There's ways you can cure that.

Kate Wilkes 32:07

You can overcome it. It's not a deadly disease, you can overcome it.

Cindy Gonos 32:10

You have the cure.

Kate Wilkes 32:11

There's a treatment. Well, thanks, Cindy. This has been fun.

Cindy Gonos 32:16

Thank you, Kate. This was amazing. I can't wait to do this again with you.

Kate Wilkes 32:20

Stay tuned, folks.

Cindy Gonos 32:21

Stay tuned.

Scott Anthony Barlow 32:28

Hey, I hope you loved this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And if this has been helpful, then please share this podcast with your friends, with your family, with your co-workers that badly need it. Here's a sneak peek into what we have coming up in store for you next week.

Angela Barnard 32:45

When I think people are really saying when they say I want to be more creative, because I hear this all the time as a coach, I feel like what they're really saying is I want to live in more of an alignment. I want to feel better about what I'm doing. I want to feel good. I want to have more fun. It's like this feeling that they're really chasing.

Scott Anthony Barlow 33:06

All that and plenty more next week right here on Happen To Your Career. Make sure that you don't miss it. And if you haven't already, click Subscribe on your podcast player so that you can download this podcast in your sleep, and you get it automatically, even the bonus episodes every single week, sometimes multiple times a week. Until next week. Adios. I'm out.

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