Stop being an imposter!
One of the buzzwords of the moment is authenticity.
You’re supposed to be yourself and say what you think which is the extreme opposite of the old advice, ‘fake it til you make it’.
I speak to leaders all the time who say words to the effect of,
“I know I know my stuff, I know I know my business, why can’t I shake this impostor feeling?”
The advice implicit in the name is that once you know enough you’ll shake the feeling and until that point you’d better be prepared to fake it.
The authenticity movement goes too far the other way.
Share your feelings, your vulnerability and insecurities it tells us.
But the truth is that both employees and clients want to know they are standing on SOLID ground and this sort of sharing makes them feel anything but AND we know it.
What authenticity really means is knowing who you are and what you stand for and then actually 'living out loud' those things that you define as important.
The challenge, of course, is that while we're faking it til we make it we're doing the exact opposite and acting in ways that OTHERS see as important and impressive while either ignoring or actively suppressing what we think, hope or know ourselves to be.
The answer?
Stop faking it!
Instead of wasting your time, effort and energy on who you're not, start the process of actually defining, refining and aligning with who you are and hold yourself to those standards.
We feel like imposters when we fail to project our values via our actions and instead compromise them for short term gain.
Consider for a moment that you TRULY and deeply believe that a B2B relationships should be one that is of mutual benefit and growth but the larger party PUSHES you to offer the same deliverables at a lower price than your going rate.
By agreeing to this you may have WON the business but you have compromised your values.
From your brains perspective you have lowered in the hierarchy, your Seratonin levels have dropped and your self esteem lowered not to mention you have given a clear message to your team and the world what they can expect from you.
You have won the business but at the cost of your hard wired self image and you feel every bit the impostor.
How we and our business chooses to operate in the world has VERY real consequences not just in business but in our health and happiness too.
The question is, does the DEAL trump who you have to be to get it?
