Imposter Syndrome - Part 2

Imposter Syndrome - Part 2

Matt: Welcome back to Write Out Loud. We are the podcast that's all about storytelling, writing, authorship, creativity, all of the fun artistic endeavors that you might enjoy. I'm, of course, joined by the pretty, perky, pensive, passionate, and prescient Christina

Christina: Ooh, prescient.

Matt: Prescient. Yes, she's, you know, she's done more than her fair share of.

Predictions. So

Christina: Well,

Matt: they've all come true.

Christina: I do have my theories.

Matt: Well, welcome back. And we are, we are in part two of imposter syndrome. So last week you heard us talk a little bit about each of the different ways that imposter syndrome can manifest and the ways that it can stop you from doing the things that you're meant to do, which is to get your voice out there to tell your story.

And today we're going to spend some time just talking around how to defeat it, how to get past it, how to understand that you are meant to do something more, that you are meant to unleash that greatness that is within you and really overcome anything. That will stand in your way. What do you say to that?

To my dear?

Christina: I also want

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: and reiterate from last week that if you start to reframe what imposter syndrome really means, meaning that, you're ready to level up, you recognize that you can push yourself a little bit more. That this piece is kind of the next. of that, like in order to get yourself out of imposter syndrome, first you have to recognize, okay, imposter syndrome, I'm having it. I'm feeling less than but it doesn't mean that I'm less than, it means that I'm ready to improve. I am ready to, to push myself to that next level. And there's always going to be a next level. You're, you're always going to be striving to, be better.

Matt: Sure. Mm-hmm

Christina: But I came across, and this is really kind of what sparked this whole you know, dual podcast. I was listening to an interview on the Writer's Guild on YouTube with two of my favorite writers. television creators, Britt Marling and Zal Butt Mollyage. they created the OA that was on Netflix, Murder at the End of the World. They are now doing their third, whatever it is. They've started to put some teasers out, uh, teasing their audience. But it was interesting because Britt actually said she does not look at any of the reviews, none.

Matt: Hmm.

Christina: said, I

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: on my, close friends. to tell me if they see something and if it's something that I, I can do to change or can help me, in other words, more of a critique from someone who can give you information on how to improve.

Matt: Sure.

Christina: Those kinds of things. That is not what we're going to be talking about tonight, uh, because that's actually good. That's good feedback. That's, you know, not necessarily reviews. Reviews tend to be opinions

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: going to help you, to improve. And so in this discussion She asked Malcolm Gladwell, who was doing the interviewing for Writer's Guild, what does he do?

Because, you know, he's a fairly popular author, best selling author, you know, has done a lot of books. And what he said actually kind of really shocked me because he said, well, and because it's true. The more popular a work is, the more critics you'll have. So, in other words He says it's an 80 20 split. 80 percent are going to like your work. They may not vocalize it, but they're going to like it, appreciate it, buy it. And then there's going to be this 20 that is not, and whether they just don't like it because they don't like what you're writing, like what you're doing. They don't, they just, their opinion is they don't like it.

Matt: Sure.

Christina: That is also going to be just general haters. People that just hate you

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: you have blonde hair. You know,

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: haired people are just dumb. Those, that's in that 20 percent that dislike. So he broke it down like this. If you've got a hundred book sales, 20 books that are read by those readers are not going to like it. That's out of the gate. That is no matter what you do, 80 percent are going to like it, 20 percent are not. So that also means if you have a million books sold, 200, 000. are going to dislike it. And at first, when you hear those numbers, you're focused on the, I'd rather have 20 people hate me than 200, 000 people that hate

Matt: Sure.

Christina: But you would absolutely 100 percent rather have a million versus the hundred. So with

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: comes this 200, 000 that are just going to be vocal about disliking you. So what we're going to talk about tonight is how to get past that. Those critics that are not giving you feedback that you can actually use in a good way, it's not going to be, I'm not talking about Stephen King talking about, if you had done this, maybe a little bit different, you're going to listen to Stephen King. Good old Steve has written. know, how many books, he's a bestseller. He's, he's written books on writing. We're going to listen to him, whatever kind of

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: critique he's going to have, review he's going to have, going to use. His own knowledge for that. What we're speaking to are these people that are just to hate you. One of the biggest I can think of right now is Colleen Hoover. Colleen Hoover has sold and millions of copies. We're not even talking in the 1 million. We're talking in the, a hundred million. I don't

Matt: Geez. Yeah.

Christina: haven't looked.

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: Um, and she has a lot of haters right now. And in fact, so much so that she's pulled back from social media.

Matt: Hmm.

Christina: There's backlash with movie that came out of the book. There's backlash now with the two actors that were involved in it. We're not going to get into that because that is, outside of the realm of what we're talking about. But what we're talking about is the idea that the more popular become, the more haters

Matt: Mm hmm.

Christina: you are going to have. And how do you past that? How do you get past these people? That are just going to be vocal and not like what you do.

Matt: Yep. Yeah, I think it ties in with if you are worried as a part of this, you're worried about what people are going to think. Maybe that statistic actually scares you more because you're thinking, holy crap, I didn't think about it in that perspective. Am I built to take this? I don't,

Christina: Yeah.

Matt: know if I can handle that many people's opinions, even if they're just opinions about my work, right?

I'm, I'm worried that I don't have what it takes to be this author who could put out this type of work that will be, Loved by the masses. It is something everybody deals with, right? Because it's a natural kind of fear because we all want to be liked at some, some level, even people who say, I don't care if people like me.

Oh, trust me, they care. But when you think about that, when you think about the piece that comes with that, you are worrying about something that you cannot control. You cannot control how someone thinks, feels, or internalizes your work, right? You have no control over that whatsoever. They're going to think what they're going to think.

Christina: Yeah.

Matt: There is a fantastic book that has just come out recently from Mel Robbins called The Let Them Theory. And I've had the chance to go through it. freaking love it would highly recommend it to anybody because just the, you know, the way that she breaks it down, the way that you kind of think about this type of mindset, it's insanely practical.

And your ability to just say, listen, again, I can't control what they're going to say, think, or feel. So let them,

Christina: Yeah.

Matt: let them have those opinions. Let them think what they want to think. Let me. Focus on what I can control, which is my craft, continuing to find ways to get better. Use the useful feedback that you get versus just the opinions, right?

Christina: Yeah.

Matt: let those things get in your way. Let them have their opinions.

Christina: Yeah.

Matt: Let you focus on what you can do.

Christina: And there's, there's something interesting too, is that, I, I tell my clients quite often you have to, so if you are going to be somebody who's going to look at reviews, so you're not like Burt Marling, who is People will tell me if I need to know something. So if you're reading your reviews, you absolutely have to ask yourself first, is this opinion or is this something I need to take into consideration? And the thing is, and this, I, I'm, I'm telling you, this happens so much in the book world with reviews. You will have one review that absolutely loved X, Y, and Z about the book, and they're going on and on and on about how great that part was. And you are going to have someone hate X, Y, Z, the exact same part,

Matt: Yep. And

Christina: my friends, is opinion.

Matt: it's kind of beautiful.

Christina: Yeah,

Matt: we can all look at the same thing and think different thoughts about it. That's okay.

Christina: yes.

Matt: let them

Christina: And the thing is, that is the mark. That is when I tell my authors, you've made it. Because if

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: hates it for that reason, and another crowd loves it for that reason, you've made it. have made

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: And I, I actually didn't realize that I was kind of doing the, Malcolm Gladwell 80 20, that you're always going to have people that hate your work, you know.

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: it's, it is It is difficult to get over you do. We started this podcast, this is something actually Matt doesn't know, and I didn't know I was going to talk about it tonight, when we started this podcast, I was actually afraid of what people were going to say. I think when you start anything and you start putting yourself out there

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: have a lot of opinions, thoughts, ideas about storytelling and writing.

I don't come at it from the same angle as

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: And I really thought, for a long time I was never going to find my way into a podcast because just too different, just

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: weird. But honestly, going into season four, this is our third year. Last 50th episode that,

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: you know what?

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: I. I do care that there are people who get something out of this. I absolutely 100 percent do. What I don't care is the people that turn it off. Those are

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: Those are not the people who I can scream until I'm blue in the face about a topic and they're still not going to listen. So, I'm not going to my breath. On that type of thing. I am going to focus on the audience who is still listening.

Matt: Yeah. Mm-hmm

Christina: written us a review. may not have written us a letter saying, I love your podcast. They may not have ever reached out,

Matt: Yeah.

Christina: people listening because we're still here.

Matt: Absolutely.

Christina: nobody listening, we wouldn't be here any longer.

Matt: Yep.

Christina: we're wasting our, our time. Nobody likes what we're saying.

Matt: Yep.

Christina: There are times that I walk away from an episode and I go, Why did I say that? did I say that? I wish I could rewind and not quite, say it that way or I would have, wish I would have said it differently. But honestly, you know what? I said it that way. I can't change it. It happened, but I can learn for the next time.

Matt: Yep.

Christina: So I think that's the big thing me with the quote unquote haters is that they're going to be out there.

Matt: Yep.

Christina: And the more popular you become, more of them are out there they're probably going to be the most vocal ones.

Matt: Yep.

Christina: I don't

Matt: Almost

Christina: is.

Matt: guaranteed because we like, as people, we like to talk about things we hate.

Christina: Yeah,

Matt: That's just not human nature.

Christina: yeah,

Matt: I, I think it's interesting. We again, think about the let them versus let me do my thing, right? Let them do that. Let me do that. From Mel Robbins book, Colleen Hoover did exactly that. She said, you know what?

Let them have their opinions. Let me step away from social media because I don't want to see it.

Christina: yeah,

Matt: Let me do what I can control. And

Christina: yeah,

Matt: is, that is the smartest thing you can do sometimes to protect your mental health

Christina: yeah,

Matt: is just get away from something that's just making you, not feel good, right.

Or not, not have a sense of joy or whatever that might be. So,

Christina: yeah,

Matt: so what if you have, we talk about these people on, on the outside, the, the voices, the critics on the outside, what if that voice is in your head? That critic is in your head and causing that imposter syndrome because you are telling yourself you're not good enough.

You are telling yourself, I I'll never do this. I could never pull this off. You know what, what then

Christina: yeah.

Matt: mm-hmm

Christina: you know, I actually, you had a great Two questions that you're supposed to ask. And once you ask those, it pretty much, you begin to realize that that voice in your head

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: just like one of those critics, critics outside of the head. They're

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: writing. They're not the ones publishing. They're not the ones shooting the shot, doing the work. Brene Brown has a great book called Daring Greatly. There's actually several of her books that I recommend to my clients all the time. Daring Greatly uh, Gifts of Imperfection, God, I, I'm, I'm losing how many there

Matt: She has a lot,

Christina: Yeah. But Daring

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: She talks about, it's not the critic who counts. Really, that book came about after she went viral on her TED Talk. And millions of, like, she was doing, like, TED Talk Houston, TED Talk

Matt: Yeah.

Christina: which is a small one, you know? So she thought, okay, you know, I'll, I'll reach some thousand people. No, it went to millions and

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: called her and, her

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: forever. But she looked at the reviews. It You know,

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: her to stay away from the YouTube and the comment section and everything. And the thing is, recognized as soon as she started talking about it, and she actually talks about this in a great interview. We're going to link that she did with, I think it was called 99U or something like that.

It's a creativity forum that she was invited to speak for. And what she started to say is when she looked at the comments, they were comments like, why is she wearing the clothes that she's wearing? Why is she wearing black? And why is she, I don't know. It had everything to do with everything that was not what she was talking about. And, she literally, to, hide under her blankets the next day and been binged watched Downton Abbey

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: She actually got curious and don't know about you, but I have gone down a rabbit hole like this when you're obsessed with a show, like year did Downton Abbey happen and who was president of the United States at that time? And so when she started Googling all that stuff Teddy Roosevelt's speech Popped up called, uh, man in the arena. And well, we have named it man in the arena. It was actually named something else entirely. I'm going to actually pull it up cause I want to read it. so, okay. Theodore Roosevelt delivered the speech entitled citizenship in a Republic at, uh, a Paris, uh, April 23rd, 1910. And for everyone. That is, recognize it. It's called the man in the arena. And I'm only going to read a short, short thing. So if you want to read the full thing, there's just Google it. 

Matt: Mm-hmm

Christina: is what's important to our conversation today. It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, meaning it's not Those haters that count because they are not in the arena with you, they weren't behind that keyboard, putting your blood, sweat and tears into creating a story,

Matt: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm

Christina: you know, are, are the armchair quarterbacks.

They are the people that are too afraid to try. And what Teddy Roosevelt is saying. You only fail if you fail to try, because if you fail while daring greatly, you've achieved more than anyone else. And I think that's the important thing to remember with the imposter syndrome, with reading reviews, with all of the work that goes into a life of creativity, the people on the outside that aren't experiencing it don't mean anything. So for me, this podcast, if we get those bad reviews, oh, she talks too much. She never lets Matt talk all of those things that go through my inner critic they don't count. They don't count. They are not in the podcast with us having the conversation, talking about the things. Being courageous enough to say are the things that matter, what we're here for. We're here to talk about things that matter in storytelling in order to help whoever's struggling.

Matt: Yeah. And it is, it's all to say that none of that is real, right? Again, the haters aren't real in the sense that their opinions really truly don't matter. The inner voice that you have is lying to you, number one.

Christina: Yes,

Matt: Number two, is not real. Right. We all have it. We all have it, but it's not real. And it is absolutely lying to you.

So you have to see it for what it is. You have to call it out and you have to literally do everything you can to get your voice out there because that is where it belongs.

Christina: yes. Is a quote and I'm totally going to botch it. So I'll get it ready for the next one that I read recently about how important it is to do your art, even if no one sees it, hears it, reads it, does it, it is doing it for yourself.

Matt: Mm hmm.

Christina: And with that inner critic, the one thing I do want to say that I really feel that more I tamp down that inner critic, the easier it is to ignore it,

Matt: Mm hmm. Mm

Christina: to overcome it. is something you have to work on. It

Matt: hmm. Mm

Christina: immediately. But once you figure out that that's that voice isn't real. That that voice is just all your fears

Matt: hmm.

Christina: and that, the true meaning of the word courage is having fear and doing it anyway, that is courage,

Matt: Yeah. Mm

Christina: creative endeavor.

I mean, I can't stress enough one of the things that I wrote down What we were talking about, pre recording this topic is the uniqueness of you. We need everyone's voice.

Matt: hmm.

Christina: need the uniqueness of you only you have that perspective. I have said this before on this podcast, if you want to write a story about vampires, even though that's been done before.

Matt: Mm hmm. Yeah,

Christina: voice, a unique way of telling that story that is going to be different than other people. If you're just trying to copy someone else, then don't do it by all means. But you know, again, it comes back to that interview with Malcolm Gladwell. I said this in the last. Last week's podcast with the imposter syndrome is the, Britt Marling said that, she has this theory of where the stories come from, because how could, they that created the OA and the Duffer Brothers who created Stranger Things both be telling stories

Matt: right.

Christina: about a young psychic girl whose nose bleeds,

Matt: Mm hmm.

Christina: a bunch of boys to do their thing. But they each told it so differently and uniquely that this person who's a huge fan of stranger things, a huge fan of the OA didn't even recognize it.

Matt: Mm hmm. You

Christina: that, because when you have a unique way of looking at that story, it doesn't matter if that story has been told before.

It doesn't matter if there's a hundred, vampire stories that were published on the same day as yours. Yours still has a chance as long as you embrace that uniqueness of you. Ignore the inner critics. Ignore the outer critics. Tell your story.

Matt: had alluded earlier to, again, if you have that voice in your head that just won't stop and you alluded to the, the two questions that I had found so this is a TEDxDoclins, uh, the gentleman's name is Anthony Metivier. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. And it's titled too easily remembered questions to silence negative thoughts.

And it's based on the work of Gary Weber, who wrote happiness beyond thought. Both, uh, the video itself is fine and dandy. It's really legit. The two questions that you take from this video, that's about night, uh, I think 13 minutes I said, and the questions are this, are my thoughts useful and how do they, how do they behave?

So if you find yourself just constantly having that, Oh, this is just not good. This is, Oh, I can't, I don't know. You're just, it's that constant stream in your head of that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. Stop and ask those few questions. You will be absolutely stunned at how quickly all of that just goes away.

Christina: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: So again, all to say the, I think the quote from Teddy Roosevelt, Really hits the nail on the head, right? The critic, the critics don't count. Both the ones in your head and the ones outside.

Christina: Yeah.

Matt: Just, please, make your art.

Christina: Yeah.

Matt: Mm

Christina: It's, it's more important now than ever.

Matt: hmm.

Christina: Make your art, whether anybody reads it, sees it, hears it, more

Matt: Yep.

Christina: now than ever.

Matt: Yes, indeed. Make it resistance fiction. That might be helpful too.

Christina: Yeah. We got to get to that topic soon.

Matt: We will get to that topic soon. Well, that's going to do it for us. Thank you so much again for tuning into this episode. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you like you can not understand. If you get a minute, head over to our website, right out loud pod.

com. There is a leave a review section. We'd love it if you did that. It really does help and share the podcast with somebody who doesn't listen. Just send it to them.

Christina: Especially the 80 percent who like us

Matt: Yes, send it, send it.

Christina: the 20 percent of our haters.

Matt: Although we don't care about them. It's fine. They can hate as a, the great Taylor Swift once said, haters going to hate, hate, hate, hate, hate.

Alright, well that's going to do it for us. Thank you again for listening. Have a wonderful rest of your day. And get your voice out there. Because we need it.

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