The downsteam chaos of impostor syndrome

[The downsteam chaos of impostor syndrome]

I worked with this guy Andrew which isn’t his really name but he was a successful founder.

Well liked by board, peers and his team.

He also had a secret.

He lived in fear of being exposed as an imposter which really means that he feared that he wasn’t knowledgeable enough to sit with these big names of business.

And it sort of coloured everything he did.

The higher the stakes the more he would panic.

Upcoming board meetings would cause him constant worry making him unable to focus on anyone or anything else.

That meant he was working at night and weekends to make up for his assumed short fall.

This led to inevitable burnout, exhaustion, bloated stomach, and a wife that was worried about him and pushing him to make a change.

She couldn’t see the why and he wasn’t too clear on it either.

They both just saw the exhaustion, always on the phone and computer, staying up late, being mentally vacant and much less fun than he used to be.

When he came to me he had a huge list of problems and was overwhelmed and thought he had a mountain to climb.

The truth was that he was far closer to his solution than he realised but in order for that to happen he needed to commit to 3 steps that he’d not only not been applying to his situation but had been actively avoiding because he believed they would cost him the success he’d been working so hard for.

We applied the steps and EVERYTHING changed.

We removed many of the things he was doing that were slowing him down and holding him back.

We ritualised a bunch of super simple processes that would create the presence to make better decisions and give a load more energy.

20 minutes per day in total.

We changed how he communicated creating more effective communication so that he was no longer owning everyone else’s problems.

That was it.

We spoke recently one year on from our work together.

He’s still working 10 + fewer hours per week.

Still looking forward to and seeking crucial conversations that he knows move the business forward and that most avoid (including board meetings).

And still focusing on growing and protecting his energy daily.

We often measure the size of our problems by how they make us feel.

We forget that everything we do moves us towards or away from what we want and that it only takes a few small action changes and consistently repeated to move us rapidly in the direction we wish to go in.

The magic is in finding the right actions.

That’s what my new Rewire program is all about.

If you’d like to hear more just send me a PM