[00:00:00] because in the moments of deep despair, kind of like, why me? And I always say, you can have why me over for a drink, but don't let it sleep in your bed because you will want to chew your arm off in the morning. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Reflect Forward. I'm your host, Kerry Siggins, and I'm so glad you are here today. Today, my guest is Jen Coken. She is a globally recognized executive leadership coach, speaker, bestselling author with 25 years of experience helping leaders thrive in high-pressure environments.
[00:00:30] She's known for her no-nonsense coaching style and her sharp humor, which I absolutely love. She's also the author of Make Imposter Syndrome Your Superpower, which is what we talk about today. How do you really lean into imposter syndrome, those things that you just feel like you are faking it and sometimes not making it? I know you're going to absolutely enjoy this interview with Jen, so hang tight, and I'll be right back. Welcome back, everyone.
[00:00:58] I have Jen Koken with me here today. We're going to have such a fun conversation. Jen, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. You are the CEO and founder of an awesomely named company. I love it. CEO embraced the ridiculousness of life. I am super curious. Where did that company name come from? I actually stole it from a friend. It was a guy that used to be in seminars with me,
[00:01:24] so I used to be a coach for a big global personal growth and development company. And he was like a young guy in his 20s, really going through what are the next steps in life and post-doc, post-whatever his schooling was and heading out into the work world. And very overwhelmed by it. And he looked at me one day, he goes, I'm just going to embrace the ridiculousness of life. And it stuck with me for years. I could have gone with Jen Koken Coaching. It's sketchy.
[00:01:53] Jen Koken Consulting, which was my old company. I'm like, nah, man, you can pick whatever you want and I can DBA as my name. We're doing embrace the ridiculousness of life because life's really stupid sometimes and you have to roll with it. Otherwise, we'd all be in tears or drunk on the street or, I don't know, shopping in Europe 24-7 and numbing ourselves out by all the ways we do that. I actually have said that word many times. The ridiculousness of life. It resonated with me.
[00:02:23] And especially right now, there's so much ridiculousness going on with all of the uncertainty and upheaval. And what does this mean for business and leaders? And we're going to talk about imposter syndrome today. I don't experience it too often, but even though we made it through the financial downturn of 2008-2009 and ups and downs, then of course COVID, like you sometimes are like, oh my God, this is so ridiculous. Can I get through this?
[00:02:46] I think what you're pointing to and what I say to people all the time, because people want to get rid of it and we'll dive more deeply into it. You can't. It's an amygdala hijack and the brain's designed to keep you safe. I tell people if you don't have it, you're playing too small. Because I feel, and I've seen this tested over and over again, that when we're stretching, when we're growing, when we're up against massive uncertainty,
[00:03:10] whether that's of our own doing because we're taking that next stage, we're going to speak on that bigger stage, we're going to launch that new company, we're going to hire that new team, we're going to promote a new product, or it's the uncertainty around us, that's there to keep you grounded and safe. I think too often we dismiss those feelings because we're told it's bad. And that's why I wrote my book. It's not bad. Those are signposts that you're growing, that you're stretching.
[00:03:40] And that's a good thing. Fear doesn't mean stop. Fear means go. It's a green light to go because you are doing something big. And the conversation that I had with myself as I was just processing those feelings that come up is one, letting myself feel it. But two, reminding myself that every hard thing that has ever been put in front of me, I have gotten through. And have gotten through a better human being, a better leader. I've learned so much. I've grown so much. I've grown my company so much. But I think sometimes it's just exhausting.
[00:04:06] Like we're just coming out of the issues that COVID caused, creating a little bit of stability. And then it's like, oh, this happens again. And I think sometimes it's a mix of can I do it again and do I want to do it again? Yeah, but I think you hit on something really important there because we can either shrink from the challenges in front of us. But it sounds to me and no surprise because you are who you are that you grew and learned.
[00:04:32] And I think that's what makes us better humans, not just more effective, not just more productive, not just more results oriented, but just better humans. Because we see things and experience things and we're dealing with our own emotions and processing that. So it allows us to dig deeper into our well of love and our well of grace and our well of peace. And I think those wells are bottomless.
[00:05:00] We think that they're not because in the moments of deep despair, kind of like, why me? And I always say, you can have why me over for a drink, but don't let it sleep in your bed because you will want to chew your arm off in the morning. That will be a problem because you'll wake up with those same negative thoughts. Yeah. And how I get through that is really through mindfulness. And I used to poo-poo mindfulness or, okay, yes, it's good for just like calming yourself down in the moment.
[00:05:29] But I have deepened my mindfulness practice, especially over these past few years where things have been so chaotic. Like it really does help me understand the real me. And it helps me see through those feelings of imposter syndrome or self-doubt or needing validation or recognition to feel good about myself or whatever it is that's coming up for me.
[00:05:52] That's such a powerful tool that I don't think people give enough credit to around the real power of just really sitting with your discomfort, understanding where it's coming from, and then visualizing and feeling your way out of it. Two things that I think are really important for people listening. Number one, allow yourself to feel your feelings. The only way to get past something is through. And it feels like you're squeezing yourself through the eye of a needle.
[00:06:20] And especially when you're at that moment where you know there's a breakthrough on the other side, it feels like that last bit of toothpaste you're trying to squeeze out of the tube. And it is the most painful part. But wow, once that comes out, that's incredibly important. The other reason what you said is so important, and this is something I talk with my coaching clients all the time, is the importance of stillness.
[00:06:45] The importance of having at least at a minimum 90 minutes a week to stare out the window, to let your mind wander, to let go, not looking at your phone. And also if people go for walks, stop bringing your podcast with you. Don't listen to your phone. A lot of people can't sit still for meditation. You can do a meditative walk.
[00:07:06] And the beauty of that is because you can then sit with your feelings, because if you don't allow the feelings to come out, they'll stay stuck in your cells and your cells have memory. Also, it gives you the ability to have more grounding and sense of presence in those moments of high stress. And you'll start to notice there's a longer and longer period of time between action and reaction, between the moment something's coming at you and your ability to react.
[00:07:35] And you'll notice it and you'll notice it and you'll notice it. It's funny we're having this conversation. I just listened to this little micro podcast after finishing a book on mindful communication. It was called, I think, How to Say Anything. I'll look it up and I'll share it. But it is really around nonviolent communication, which is the first time I've ever read a book around nonviolent communication.
[00:07:54] And the author was emphasizing so much the power of the pause of those moments between communicating and the sentences that you're saying or those moments when you just are like, OK, I'm not going to say anything right now. And I'm going to see how this plays out. And then I listened to this podcast that reminded me of it this morning, and it was the power of these like micro moments of being by yourself.
[00:08:20] And one of the ways that I've been sneaking those in is that I turn off the music or anything when I'm driving in my car. I can't tell you how much that has improved my mood and calmed my nerves, especially in these times where everything is so nerve wracking. Just what a 10 minute drive with no sound can do.
[00:08:42] So you can sneak those micro moments, those micro doses of self inquiry if you just look for them in those spaces in the car or in your office when you're like, I'm going to sit here for five minutes and I'm just going to breathe instead of answer this email. Or I'm going to sit and drink my coffee for a minute. It's funny this morning, you know, those moments where you have your morning routine and then you go out of it and you come back in. And so I had some pretty intensive oral surgery a couple of weeks ago and I couldn't work out.
[00:09:11] And I live for my workouts, but I also had more time to journal and I had more time to meditate. And one of the things I had dropped out was not eating at the kitchen sink, my breakfast or my coffee or whatever, but sitting at the table and setting a place for myself. And I did that this morning. It was 10 minutes. I had my little eggs and my blueberries and my two pieces of bacon and my coffee and looked out the window and noticed the leaves changing. And it honestly, like you said, it's micro moments.
[00:09:40] It doesn't take any more than that. And when we're able to string those micro moments together, then the length of time, as I said before, between action and reaction comes to play. And that's also a way to identify and disrupt your imposter syndrome ongoingly is being able to harness those micro moments and that mindfulness. It's part of what I teach and part of what I talk about in my book. It's great to figure out how do I get rid of it, which you never can.
[00:10:07] But then what do I do once I've identified where it all comes from, which is the work I do? It's mindfulness at its core. It seems basic, but it's not, especially in this day and age. Yeah, it seems simple, but it's not easy. Exactly. Yes, it seems simple, but it's not easy. Neuroscience says it takes 600 to 800 repetitions for the brain to learn something new. But they say when you add play, it can be limited to 12.
[00:10:32] And I always talk about the power of the paws and I always put paws up like I'm a prairie dog because I used to live in Colorado and I would cycle and these little prairie dogs would come up. I'd never seen them before coming from the East Coast. What is this beast bursting out of the ground here? You got to be like a prairie dog and take a minute. Yep, totally agree with you. And I know those prairie dogs well. I live in Colorado as well and they are everywhere. They're everywhere. They're just like this. I'm just going to look around and observe and see what's going on here before I take any actions. Prairie dogs are mindful then.
[00:11:01] They are. There you go. They are also very nasty creatures. You never want to touch a prairie dog. Oh, okay. I never have tried. Have you tried? Wait a minute. This is a whole other podcast, I think. I grew up in rural Colorado and there were prairie dogs everywhere and my dad took pleasure in shooting them. And so he would be gross and grab them and hold them up. And I just remember my mom always being like, don't do that. Those things are just filled with fleas and all kinds of disease. You don't even know what you're going to be getting with those things.
[00:11:31] Do not touch the prairie dogs. Put the prairie dog down, sir. The joys of growing up in the middle of nowhere. It's where you shoot prairie dogs and torment your children. I was actually just driving to my hometown a couple weeks ago. Man, my son has been very curious about where I grew up, which is interesting because usually he's like, oh God, you're so boring. So he wanted to drive by the house that I grew up in, which is 12 miles outside of town.
[00:11:57] We drove by my childhood house and where the shooting of the prairie dogs took place. And I showed him there's this little church that is a mile away from the house. And I said, oh, we used to walk to church there. Not because we went to church. My mom was not religious, but because we had nothing else to do. And it was like, well, Sunday morning, what do you want to do? My mom's like, get out of the house. Well, let's walk down to church. So we would walk the mile, go to church and come back. And my son was like, growing up in the 90s, that would be so boring. I was like, are you kidding? We played in front of mountain lion dens and didn't die.
[00:12:27] And didn't die. That was amazing. All right. Back to imposter syndrome. I'm so glad we're having this conversation today because like you said, it never really goes away. I was really surprised when I had some of these feelings of uncertainty and inadequacy come up this weekend. I'm so glad we're having this conversation because it's very real. So you wrote a book called Make Your Imposter Syndrome Your Superpower. So talk a little bit about why you wrote the book and how you go about making imposter syndrome your superpower. Whenever you write a book like that, it always starts with you, right?
[00:12:57] So back in, I think it was like 2019, I had a big contract with a tech company. And what was interesting to me is I spent my career promoting other people, starting nonprofits, getting people elected at every local state national, passing legislation, working on the Hill around school nutrition programs. I was never shy about speaking up, promoting the organization, the cause, whatever it was. When I hung out my own shingle 10 years ago.
[00:13:26] So I was coaching while I was doing that at the same time. But when I decided to go on my own 10 years ago, all of a sudden, and I didn't realize it, it became really hard to promote myself. And I had a lot of reasons why. But then you come to 2019. And as I was out coaching and training for them, when I wasn't, I literally, or when I wasn't out speaking, I was under the covers at home. And I began working with a coach to figure out, okay, what's going on here? Because this isn't me.
[00:13:56] I've never had problems speaking up. But somehow, when I'm talking about me, my opinions, what I think should happen, my recommendations, my framework for coaching, advocating for something, I become like this little mouse. Like I just want to disappear into the ground. So I began working with this coach. And what we identified was that when I was six, I was in love with this little boy named Keith. I won't say his last name because he might be married and his wife might get jealous. You never know.
[00:14:25] And I decided, I want to see if he liked me back. So I chased him around the playground to try to kiss him. And when I caught him, he was like, ew, go away. And it felt at the time in my little six-year-old brain that every kid there was like, ah, ah, ah. And then the cootie boy, you know, the gross boy kissed me. He's like, I'll kiss you and ran away. And then everybody laughed harder. And at the time, I just wanted to disappear into the ground.
[00:14:51] So I realized in that moment, I had this experience of shame and deep embarrassment in the brain. It's such a good muscle to make sure that the thing it's a brain of stays alive. You and me, it's always discerning level of threat. And the brain's never dealing with reality. So it can't discern between a saber tooth, a bus coming at you, a knife at your throat, or uncertainty in the economy and what's next for your company. It's both Mach 11.
[00:15:21] The key is understanding where these patterns come from. I realized this pattern began when I was six. The brain, oh, don't want to experience that again. So as a little kid, I'm like, I'm never going to put myself out there like that. As I got older, it became about promoting other people. Even in my teenage years, getting other people elected to student council. I never ran, even though people told me I should. I never headed up organizations, even though people told me I should.
[00:15:50] I would always shy away from that stuff because in my mind, I was humble. That's what it was. However, I never equated it to this upset six-year-old. When I saw this brain pattern, I saw two things. One was, whoa, me deciding I'm going to help other people, that's how it translated as an adult, has really gotten me a ton of accolades. Lots of great organizations still running today that I started.
[00:16:18] Lots of awards and things like that for my leadership. Never for me personally, always for the organization. And then I began to look at where else that came up. And I began to identify what I call the red flags and early warning signs. Now, for me, when that happened, I was around my peers. Okay, my sense of belonging got ruptured. So they had to test this and do this work with my clients and then more clients and more speaking engagements. So now thousands and thousands of people.
[00:16:46] And it all comes back to the same thing. Whatever our personal flavor of imposter syndrome is, and it's not a syndrome. It's not a medical diagnosis. It's a phenomenon. It's an as-lived experience, which is what it means when it's a phenomenon. It's phenomenological. Everybody, to a T, could equate it back to something innocuous that happened to them before the age of 12. Sometimes even earlier, like me at six years old.
[00:17:12] And at some moment where something happened, either in their sense of belonging or their relationship to authority. One of the two. And when we were able to identify and unlock their brain pattern, they could see the decision they took in that moment was also a way they produced results. It was like light bulbs going off left and right. The logic became inescapable. So there I was working with all these different people.
[00:17:39] And I wanted to write the book because I wanted to put the framework that I use with my clients and the way I think about leadership and the four styles of leadership into a format that people could understand and hopefully do that work on themselves to a degree. And if not, bring me in to speak or have me coach them, et cetera.
[00:17:58] But I needed to get this content, this thought leadership, what I discovered out into the world so that more and more women could be empowered. And men, I specifically work with women in STEM, but more and more humans, because imposter syndrome hits everybody, could be empowered in those moments of stress. So that's when it kicks in. And if you don't know the origin of that brain pattern, it's going to have you. You're not going to have it.
[00:18:27] And I want more people to recognize how to use mindfulness to recognize when it's an imposter moment or a phenomenon and it's an amygdala hijack at the end of the day. It's not real. It's not a problem. So many women have come to me and said, my boss said I should talk to you because he says or she says, I have imposter syndrome. I said, what do people get to tell you who you are?
[00:18:51] Really, at the end of the day, it's about returning each of us to who we truly are and being able to lead as our true selves instead of spending so much time wasting away wanting to please other people and try to be what other people want us to be. We're at our happiest when we're true to ourselves. And who we are is the embodiment of love, the embodiment of peace, compassion, all those things that we strive to be that truly is who we are.
[00:19:19] We have barriers to the fullest expression of who we are. And this is a massive barrier that I've seen. Yeah. I've been really playing around with this a lot lately. I know where my imposter syndrome has come from, so to speak, or the self-doubt. The fear that I had as never being good enough, never worthy. And so I was always like overachieving and trying to prove myself, prove that I was successful and smart.
[00:19:43] And it came from my dad leaving when I was young and never having anything nice to say to me, only really hard on me. I had this really interesting realization that is just like this next layer. That's what this journey is really about, is understanding yourself as you peel the onion layer. And I realized that part of my people-pleasing and then how that leads to maybe not feeling good enough comes from wanting to make people feel comfortable.
[00:20:11] And not just people in general, but particularly men. And I've seen this play out with my relationship with my dad, with my romantic partners in my life, with relationships, and with professional men in my life who have either mentored me or who I work with. And I had this big realization. I'm driven and I push hard and I certainly piss people off. I don't ever want that. I want people to feel comfortable. And that was like this next layer for me of really understanding myself that I can be true to myself.
[00:20:40] I can be kind, compassionate. I can listen. I can work with people. I can try to find a solution that works for everybody. But I don't have to make people feel comfortable. That's not my responsibility. That's their responsibility. My responsibility is to own how I show up in this relationship. And this has been so incredibly powerful. I literally just had this realization maybe a month ago. And it has changed the way that I'm showing up in my relationships.
[00:21:07] And it's helping me understand when I have those feelings of inadequacy that pop up. Or can I do this? Or am I enough? Or what happens if I fail? Like, can I really scale Stone Age to a billion-dollar valuation? That's what came up this past weekend. And I realized that is a huge part of it, is that I'm always just trying to make everything okay and comfortable instead of just being like, hey, this is what I am. And I'm perfectly good with who I am. I love who I am. Yeah.
[00:21:36] And I'm going to show up as my best self. I love this conversation because it is about understanding yourself and just being willing to peel back those layers. And even if you understand, okay, like this is where it comes from, there's always more work to do. There's always more to learn about yourself. I love that for you. I also love that for the people around you. Because clearly whatever happened was your relationship to authority. Yeah. And the brain decided, if only I had made everybody comfortable, things would have been okay. Except they weren't.
[00:22:05] And then you consistently create the same situations unconsciously to prove that you're right, that you can make people feel comfortable. So I think what's key, what you said was getting to the origin or the defining moment, as I call it, and now being on the lookout for that. But I also use the word artichoke instead of onion. And here's why. Because onions make you cry. When you peel back the layers of the artichoke, though, what's in the center of an artichoke? The heart.
[00:22:35] And the closer you get to the heart, the more prickly things become. And it's all that like fuzzy stuff that you really have to be surgically precise about removing. So the more we learn about ourselves, it's like these big layers fall off and then more layers fall off. As long as we continue to grow, we'll continue to see that. But we might have to have some more surgical precision about how it all shows up. Because what's underneath that all is our beautiful, gorgeous heart. And that's really what we want.
[00:23:04] We want to be able to love ourselves 100% other people in our lives. But we also have to create boundaries and let people know when they've crossed them or not. And the other thing that I love that you said is it is not your job to make other people feel comfortable. What other people think about you is none of your business. What you think about you, you got to make that your business because that's the person you go to sleep with every night. Right? That's the person you got to look in the mirror and determine, do I like this person? And am I okay with who I am?
[00:23:34] And it reminds me of the moment where I got imposter syndrome while giving a keynote last October. And people would think I had it handled by now. I was co-presenting with somebody. And I noticed I was very nervous and I really wasn't connecting, although I felt like I was. And I did my piece. I did fine. People got a lot out of it. And then it was time for my co-facilitator to do her section. And I sat down and felt myself almost like shrinking back, making myself smaller, wanting the floor to swallow me up.
[00:24:04] And I started to notice. And I think this is what's key, that you had that realization. You can start to be a witness when this comes up again for you. What are the feelings? What are the body sensations? This is really key. This is a really good tell when you have those imposter moments where imposter syndrome rears its ugly head. How does it feel in your body? Because sometimes your body will tell you what's about to happen before you actually know. Body first and the mind.
[00:24:31] And so I was like out of body experience watching myself. And we had set it up so we could do a demonstration. We thought we were going to do something from the audience. And so she introduces that. And I said, Hannah, you got to coach me. She's like, why? I go, I've been gone since this moment. And she looked at me. I'm like, yep, in front of everybody. And it was a very simple thing. When they introduced her, she has some letters after her name. I don't. And they said them. And all of a sudden, she was better than I was.
[00:25:00] And it was like I was never going to get to where she was. I was never going to get what I really wanted. But the beauty of it is when we, especially as accomplished as we are, when we're willing to reveal these hard truths about ourselves and get real about it, it gives other people a lot of space for their own humanity. And that's the only reason I ever go to town anymore. I'm digging out the crud. Because we've all got crud. You know, look at our fingernails. I'm sure there's some dirt under there somewhere.
[00:25:29] And that's what I always say to myself. Like, where's the dirt? What courage it took for you to do that in front of an audience. I can only imagine that it was incredibly powerful for you and for them to witness like you leaning into your imposter syndrome and to witness you move yourself out of it in that moment. Yeah. And it's funny because it was a group of my peers. Yeah. Like, OK, of course.
[00:25:56] And so now I don't know about you when I'm getting ready to give a presentation to anybody. I want to puke beforehand. I'm just I'm nervous because we have something at stake. There's like something on the line here that we want to convey or contribute or we're going to bat for something. And now I know, particularly when it comes to if I'm giving any kind of presentation with peers, I've got to put in some other pieces before I walk on that stage and make sure I'm crystal clear and there for them.
[00:26:25] Because you give presentations and people look at you with that stone face. And I just remind myself they probably have gas because I don't know what else to do sometimes. Let's talk a little bit about the power dynamic, because I think that is where a lot of times this imposter syndrome comes up when you feel like I'm not in a position of power here. And why would anybody listen to what I have to say? Or I'm never going to make that happen because I don't have this position of power.
[00:26:53] How does power dynamics play into imposter syndrome? I love this question. And interestingly, I had just launched a new program. We're in the middle of the cohort. I'm going to be leading a session on influence without authority tomorrow, actually. I would say twofold. One, if you understand where your particular version of imposter syndrome comes from, that can give you some keys. Mayan is not with authority. So I never had those moments of can I speak up? Who's going to listen to me?
[00:27:21] I just would charge in there, especially when people told me I couldn't do it. But among peers, forget about it. For you, your version with your dad, right? It's about authority. So I think number one is recognizing the feelings first. You got to do some pre-work. Let's say you're prepping for a meeting where you're hoping to speak up or even you're prepping for a meeting or prepping for your day. And you might be called on or you might want to give an opinion or you've noticed you tend not to in certain instances.
[00:27:49] I'm coaching someone right now who is newly on an exec team and he has noticed himself holding back. And so we did some work like this. So the question to ask yourself is, okay, I'm afraid to speak up in this instant because who's going to listen to me? Is there an earlier similar time that thought occurred to me? What was that? And just go where the brain takes it. Was there an earlier similar time and kind of check in with yourself and notice the feelings
[00:28:16] in your body, where it comes from, notice your mood, any of those things that'll help you unlock that brain pattern. Once you've done that work, because as far as I can tell, each of us has maybe five of these core moments or what I call defining moments that everything comes back to in a lot of ways if you really dissect it. Then the other piece is I use an old tool called power mapping that we used to use in the grassroots movement. It's also mind mapping.
[00:28:44] So let's say you want to walk into a meeting, you're getting ready to pitch new investors to get your company to the valuation you want. And you want to look at the people who are going to be around that table and get to know as much as you can about them and figure out who else do they know. And is there a way to connect with them prior to the meeting? Is there a way to create partnership with the leader who you're entering into their meeting or you want to go talk to?
[00:29:14] What else can you learn about them so that you understand how they think and how they interact with others? Not to kowtow to them, but more, I'm always interested in people setting up what I call power source relationships. When I look at an inspirational leader, influential leader, it's about inspiring their team. And it's these leaders who create these symbiotic relationships with their teams where they're feeding power to each other. There's never putting anyone down. There's never calling anyone out.
[00:29:43] There might be one person in charge, but we all have the authority to own the results of this team or this company. That would be one piece. Another piece I often say is you are the CEO of you. So as the CEO of you, do you think it's a good idea? And like you mentioned, when else have I failed that it didn't come through? Have you ever attempted to get your voice heard before? If not, there's no sense of failure here. And create allies too before you walk into a meeting.
[00:30:12] I would say, I'm going to introduce this, whatever it is. And you might've said to me, I don't think it's a good idea. Maybe not at this meeting. And I say, okay, I'm going to suss it out and see if it's the right moment. When I do, will you make sure that we take time to discuss it? And if somebody goes to interrupt me or they move on to something else, would you be willing to say, hey, I want to discuss the idea that Jen just had? Good to have another woman at the table back you up. Even better to create male allies around the table and have male allyship.
[00:30:41] Cross-gender so that we can be supporting one another because nobody can succeed. One gender can't succeed without the other in a meeting, in a corporate situation, in life. As far as I know, we all have dads, we all have moms. So we need those. Maybe we have brothers, maybe we don't. But there's at least one really important man in our lives. And we want to work together and create the symbiosis and this power source relationship. That's how you can be an influential leader.
[00:31:08] A couple of things that I do is whenever I'm feeling it, whether it's a power dynamic or something else that's making me feel insecure or not as confident as I should, I make myself tell myself three other stories than the one that I am. And it needs to be positive. So I'm going to not be heard or I'm going to fumble my words. No, I'm going to tell myself three other possible stories as to what's happened. Or even if I have taken something maybe the wrong way that then I'm telling myself a story about, oh, there is this power dynamic.
[00:31:36] No, tell myself three different stories and all of them have positive outcomes. And that just forces your brain to see that what you're telling yourself might not be the truth just because you think it might not be the truth. The other thing, of course, is visualization. Walking in there and seeing yourself. And the trick with visualization isn't just seeing it, it's feeling it. I'm going to go in there. I'm going to give my opinion and I'm going to knock it out of the park. I'm going to say it in a way that people hear me and it's going to create dialogue and that we're going to come to a positive outcome.
[00:32:06] Those things really help me also mentally prepare myself when I am feeling nervous about walking into a room and having a conversation or doing something that makes me feel uncomfortable. You had me think of two other things. One is I love the idea of telling yourself different stories. For me, it'd be stupid, funny stories like, well, nobody listens to me. Well, maybe they're all Martians. Maybe pod people took them over. You know, that sort of a thing because we are always telling ourselves stories and our suffering lies in our stories.
[00:32:36] The other thing you could do is write out the story you're telling yourself. Write it out on a piece of paper. Give yourself like a couple minutes to write it out. And then take a deep breath. Pause. Periodic pause. And then go circle the facts. You won't find many. And that allows whatever that amygdala hijack is to calm down and allows your prefrontal cortex, your logic brain to come in and go, okay, no, this is just a story I'm telling myself. And I can tell myself all these other stories.
[00:33:03] So as we're wrapping things up, I would love for you to share maybe your three tips on how to make imposter syndrome your superpower. How do you go about doing it? By the book. No kidding. That's the first tip. I didn't kidding. But obviously, yeah. Obviously, by the book. I would say first take the case that when you are feeling doubt, when you are questioning yourself or you feel like a fraud, it's not you. Like Robert Palmer used to say, the lights are on, but you're not home from that song Addicted to Love.
[00:33:33] Yeah. The lights are on, but you're not home. You're having an amygdala hijack. First step is consider. Consider this is an amygdala hijack. You're not even needed right now. Then I would ask myself, okay, what else does this remind me of? What is the situation or person I'm about to talk to? Does that person remind me of someone? Does the situation? Usually it will. And that's the key thing to understand that brain pattern is seeing that, oh, this is a similar earlier moment where my brain dealt with the same thing. Okay.
[00:34:03] That's what that reminds me of. Is that happening right now? No. And then I think the third and final thing is asking yourself this question. What's the difference you want to make with this comment, with this situation? Because as you said, when we're able to visualize, when we're able to connect the emotion with the difference we want to make, that you're here to be of service, that you have one of the core principles I work on with every single one of my clients is their vision for the
[00:34:32] world, not for the company, not for their family, like families have mission statements, but what's the impossible promise you're here to solve? That's never going to be solved in your lifetime, but you would gladly spend your life attempting to solve. And mine is a world of people at home with themselves. So people truly feel known and honored. So give yourself that visualization of where you want to get to, and then backtrack where
[00:34:57] the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and body sensations come from to identify and disrupt your flavor of imposter syndrome. And I think that it just all comes back to self-awareness, going back into peeling the artichoke and why it is so important to understand yourself. For me, my imposter syndrome stemmed from not feeling worthy, always trying to prove myself combined with my personality of desiring recognition, needing that recognition to feel validated.
[00:35:26] And it led me to some really toxic places. In my twenties, I was a complete shit show because of these things. And once I started to understand again, where it came from and understand how my personality feeds into those triggers, I was able to do something about it. I used to be so ashamed around my personality and this desire to be seen, to be recognized. I even had to get comfortable with words like narcissist or things like that, that when you're
[00:35:53] in a really low level of health might manifest itself in that way. Right. If you let yourself go to that place. But once I just embraced it and I said, okay, how do I not just make my life better because I have the desire to be on a big stage? How do I make other people's lives better because of it too? How do I take these gifts and even the dark side of these gifts and use it for good? Yep.
[00:36:19] Good for me and good for other people and just get comfortable with who I am. And that takes work, right? That takes looking at yourself. It takes peeling back the artichoke to get to the heart of who you are. And you really can make it a superpower. I absolutely believe that what causes my imposter syndrome is a superpower because I know how to move through it. I know how to use it to motivate me to make an impact. And you can't do it if you're not willing to look at yourself, if you're not willing to go deep
[00:36:48] and understand where it comes from, how it plays into your personality and how to bring the very best parts of it to the front and center instead of feeling shame or embarrassment or frustration about it. Yeah, agreed. There's a great book that I always recommend called, besides mine, called The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford. And she makes this comparison of rooms in a house that were like a house with all these different rooms. And some of the rooms we love because they're garden rooms and the piano room and they're
[00:37:17] brilliant, but some of them remain locked because we're scared to go in there. When we're able to go in there, like you said, and embrace that darkness, it's like we're bringing a piece of our soul back into itself. And that's important because things happen and we have what's called samskaras, they're wounds of the heart. So how do we heal those wounds so that we can be wholehearted and give of ourselves for what our purpose is and why we're put on this planet?
[00:37:46] And it sounds like you've done a phenomenal job. Well, only because I have totally fallen on my face multiple times. But like yourself back up, right? This is what I always tell people because I did almost die, right? I accidentally overdosed in 2006 and they gave me a profound appreciation for a second chance. And I always say to people, I get it. Being embarrassed sucks. It hurts. It stings. But it's not dying. So pick yourself up.
[00:38:11] Even if you do make a mistake or you do fail or you do bomb a keynote or whatever it is, it's not dying. So you can learn from it. You can grow from it. And you can use it as fuel to propel you forward if you're just willing to get over yourself and realize everybody does this. Everybody has to fall down and pick themselves back up to move forward. I think what's key is learn from it.
[00:38:36] You know, I can think about a keynote I gave back in 2017 where I was a horror show because they found that the workshop wasn't great and the organization wasn't great. But the poor little printer I used at the last minute that morning to print my stuff got it all wrong. But I was in a rush and I was rushing them. And then I took it out on them. And somebody overheard me. And I'm sure to this day I've never been asked back. And that's why. And I can be ashamed about that. Or I can remember, yep, people are watching.
[00:39:05] But don't do it because people are watching. Do it because it doesn't feel good to my heart. And I reflect every night. Is there anybody that I've left not at home with themselves or anybody that I've caused that moat? You want to learn and grow. Don't shy away from those growth moments. Don't even hope nobody sees it. Hope somebody did. Because people aren't going to judge you by your failures. They're going to judge you by how you picked yourself up and what came after at the end of the day. Thank you for sharing that story. I appreciate the vulnerability there.
[00:39:33] And it's a great segue into my signature question, which is the name of this podcast is Reflect Forward. What does Reflect Forward mean to you in this context of imposter syndrome and our discussion today? I think it's the remembering imposter syndrome is momentary and our vision of how we want to see the world and what we're committed to and our intention for how we want to leave this planet once we're gone is so much more important.
[00:40:01] Those moments of feeling doubt or shame or embarrassment are so fleeting when we look at the entirety. And like you, my opinion is my life is for the community. My life is for whatever I can leave for other people. And that's what I think about Reflect Forward. Kind of like Root Down to Rise Up in yoga. Very similar. Be grounded in your reflections. But also remember, we're here for a purpose. And how can that reflection propel you forward? I love it. Thank you. All right.
[00:40:30] So how can people find you and how can they find your book? They can find me jenkoken.com. J-E-N-C-O-K-E-N dot com. And the book is Make Imposter Syndrome Your Superpower. You can find it wherever you buy books. Here's my request. If you can go to Barnes & Noble or your local indie bookstore and request it there, they're going to take note. Particularly Barnes & Noble. We're trying to get stores to have more of the stores requesting more books. You also can buy it on Amazon. Please write a review.
[00:40:59] And if you want me in with your book club, you want me to come in and speak to your organization, I would love, love, love to do that. I've been having a lot of fun with those workshops too. Wonderful. Well, I'll include all that in the show notes. And thank you so much for coming and having this very vulnerable and very interesting and fun conversation with me today. I needed it more than you can imagine. Callie, it was great to be with you. Thanks for having me on. I've just appreciated getting to know you a bit through the podcast. So thanks. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Hang tight, everyone. I'll be right back. Hi, everyone.
[00:41:29] I'm back. I hope you enjoyed that episode. Be sure to check out her book. It's filled with all kinds of insightful information on how to get over that self-doubt that you might be experiencing. If you like this episode and believe that a leader can benefit from listening to it, someone who needs help with imposter syndrome or self-confidence or self-doubt, please be sure to share it. And if you like this podcast, please write a review on your favorite podcast platform, subscribe to it on YouTube or on that podcast platform, share it with a friend.
[00:41:58] It always helps get these amazing stories out to the world. Thanks so much, and I look forward to hosting you next week. Take care.