How to Be Boss When You Feel Like a Fraud

Kathleen Shannon 0:04
Get your business together, get yourself into what you do, and see it through.

Emily Thompson 0:10
Because being boss is hard, winning work and life is messy. Making a dream job of your own isn't easy.

Kathleen Shannon 0:18
But getting paid for it, becoming known for it. And finding purpose in it is so doable.

Emily Thompson 0:24
If you do the work, being boss, a podcast for creative entrepreneurs from Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon, welcome to Episode 12. How to be boss even when you feel like a fraud brought to you by fresh books

cloud accounting.

Kathleen Shannon 0:43
Hey guys, so today's episode is all about being boss, even whenever you don't feel like a boss. This episode is what to do whenever you feel like a fraud. And those feelings include having no idea what you're doing, or not being able to imagine why anyone would want to pay you money to do what you do. But first an announcement. We have decided start at being boss YouTube channel. And if everything goes according to plan, this episode will be on YouTube. You can find that link on our show notes and on our website at love being boss calm. So Emily nine decided to start a YouTube channel. Crazy. We

Emily Thompson 1:27
know.

Kathleen Shannon 1:29
We just thought it would be a good way to get being boss out there to even more creatives. And we also thought it'd be a good excuse to get dressed. Emily and I are usually recording these like Emily's usually in her bed.

Emily Thompson 1:42
Yeah,

Kathleen Shannon 1:43
I'm usually still in my robe, like no bra no makeup. We're close enough friends that like we can see each other like that.

Unknown Speaker 1:51
Right?

Kathleen Shannon 1:51
We want to take it seriously. So we put on we got dressed we put on some makeup. Yeah,

Emily Thompson 1:59
I got out of bed, I came to the studio, right? It's pretty legit.

Kathleen Shannon 2:03
And what's cool about the YouTube channel is that you are going to be able to see the entire unedited episode. So what did you call it Emily?

Emily Thompson 2:13
Being boss uncut.

Kathleen Shannon 2:17
Just makes me giggle. And you can see the entire episode probably some bloopers that we're usually editing out on our YouTube channel. And before we move forward with our episode, I just want to remind you all and thank you all for reviewing us on iTunes. It really does help our ratings and it really does help us get to more people. So if you can just do us a huge favor and get on your computer, go to the iTunes Apple Store and click on podcasts. Yeah, search for being boss. And just give us a little five star rating.

Emily Thompson 2:56
Whatever, but we prefer the five star

Kathleen Shannon 2:58
I mean, yeah, like please don't give us a one or two, you're gonna stand out.

Emily Thompson 3:02
Right?

Kathleen Shannon 3:05
I don't want to challenge people to give us a one or two. So cut that out. They'll see it on our YouTube though. But um, anyway, please go to iTunes and give us a rating or review. It really does help us reach more creative entrepreneurs with being boss, even if you're listening to us on Soundcloud or Stitcher and the iTunes ratings really do help. Okay, but let's go and get into this episode, which is feeling like a fraud.

Emily Thompson 3:32
Yeah, let's let's dive into it. So we had an email question. And it actually is this the one that came from Facebook?

Kathleen Shannon 3:42
Well, we have a ton we have a ton of so we didn't necessarily get an email question about feeling like a fraud. But I went on our Facebook group, which is now about 600 members. So that's another thing if you want to join our Facebook, go to facebook.com slash groups slash being boss. It's a private Facebook group so that you can talk about your side hustle, even if you're still working a day job. But we have a lot of activity going on in there. And I asked everyone in there, what makes them feel like a fraud. And here were just a few of the responses. And one person said that she felt like a fraud. Whenever people questioned her prices. She said sometimes when people question my prices, I get a mixed reaction of feeling angry slash self doubt. She said I just stick to my guns. But I think we all know even when we're someone's like, why do you charge that it can make you just bristle? Yeah.

Emily Thompson 4:42
Yeah, and we had someone else say, Oh, it's absolutely having to do anytime with any kind of phone communication. I can talk to people face to face or through email all day long, but the phone just makes me angry and stuttery and terrible on it. And I have a scheduled phone call. With a national retailer tomorrow,

Kathleen Shannon 5:02
that wouldn't surprise me just because I never. I mean, I have the things that make me feel like a fraud, but getting on the phone. I mean, sometimes I feel like a total spaz. But it doesn't feel like a fraud. I some other people said, If I start actively looking at what my competitors are doing, that's when I slip into my funk. Why bother? Someone else is already doing a great job. Oh, my gosh, I can relate to that one. Yeah,

Emily Thompson 5:27
me as well. Let's see, we had another one that said, I don't have an art degree. And I've never sold my art before. I don't know at what point I will feel qualified to call myself an artist, especially when I look at others art. And it's so amazing.

Kathleen Shannon 5:43
Someone else said I'm struggling with feeling like a fraud right now. It happens when a potential or it happens when potential work never comes to fruition. Specifically, I've had a few potentials just never call me back. As in we had great communication talked about the projects. I put the work on my calendar. And then I just don't hear from them again.

Emily Thompson 6:05
Yeah, and I'm just realizing do everyone gets to see my facial expressions now. Like, oh, really things and be like making faces? Like you definitely have to go to YouTube now and watch Emily make faces that Kathleen and then Kathleen is going to make faces at me too. It's going to be great. So we had another one. As for me, it's get stirred up when big things are happening. Moving into a launch phase getting asked to speak at a conference, but oh mg, what if they find out I'm a fraud.

Kathleen Shannon 6:33
And then my favorite one was someone who feels like a fraud when she can't believe someone is paying her to do the work that comes so easily to her. Which Wow, hit me to the heart. with that. I get it. So Emily, I'm curious, what makes you feel like a fraud?

Emily Thompson 6:53
Oh, all the things make me feel like a fraud? No, I think my my biggest fraudulent fears come whenever I try to look at my own big picture. So for me, I have you know, I have grand goals for what I want to accomplish in my life. And one of those is I want to be a millionaire. And I want to invest in small businesses and help entrepreneurs reach their dreams in a bigger way than just building brands and websites, which is where you know, I'm currently at and my, like big life goals. And though I'm getting much more uncomfortable, or much more comfortable with that big dream. When I compare that to where I am now, I always have this moment where I'm like, Who the hell do you think you are trying to like, do all of these things are having such big goals? So I just I kind of have to remind myself that it's in baby steps,

Kathleen Shannon 7:43
but or Do you ever feel like it's um, like, whenever I feel like a fraud with my big goals? It's like, you should have figured this shit out already. Yeah, like that you

Emily Thompson 7:53
they're already like you've been in this for five years? Where are you just like still doing brands and websites. But this is also like, a 40 year goal. Yeah, are those sorts of things. So for me, like looking at the big picture, and setting big goals, just something that I truly believe in is setting really big goals for yourself. I believe and I but it doesn't mean that I don't look at my goals sometimes and think that I'm a total fraud.

Unknown Speaker 8:16
Anything else that makes you feel like a fraud. I'm

Emily Thompson 8:19
out on a smaller scale, just being asked to do projects that are a little out of my comfort zone. Like if, if someone comes to me and wants a website that's a little bigger than the websites that I've built before. Or if it's a it's a consulting project, where it's the they're asking me to consult with them on things that I haven't personally done myself, maybe, but I've seen other people do. So it's just like being asked to do things that are a little bit a little bit out of my comfort zone. But also getting paid to do it. Sometimes I felt like a bit of a fraud. What about you, Kathleen?

Kathleen Shannon 8:58
Um, you know, like, whenever you were pitching the idea of this podcast, I was like, I really don't think I've had that feeling like a fraud feeling and a long time. So I really had to dig deep. I've certainly had vulnerability hangovers. And whenever everyone else in our Facebook was listing out what makes them feel like a fraud. I was like, Oh, yeah, that definitely gives me funny feelings like speaking. Definitely huge vulnerability hangover afterwards, but I never really feel like a fraud necessarily. So anyway, but what I came up with was I feel like a fraud whenever there is a miscommunication, or lack of clarity around expectations with my clients. So for example, whenever a client thinks that they're going to come out of a branding engagement with me with a website, like and usually it's clarified before even the contract phase, of course, but whenever they're like okay, so what about My website and I'm like, Oh, I don't do that. Let me hand you off to my friend Emily, she can do that for you. And so that always makes me feel just kind of awkward. or whenever someone wants me to read all of the books that they've written before I brand them and it's like, I don't have time to read every book you've ever written before I brand you branding is about the outer layer of who you are not about all the deeper content, but then it still makes me feel funny like that. They expected me to do that, and I'm not delivering on it. Um, but Okay, here's the thing that really makes me feel like a fraud. And it's whenever I am feeling or being judgmental, or even jealous about someone else. So for example, like Marie Forleo is a genius, right? And nobody can deny that. But sometimes I'll look at her stuff. And I'll be like, I mean, I could have said that anyone could have said that? Who does she think she is? Which in turn, like having negative feelings about other people? Or it's usually like whatever negative feelings you're having about yourself. And so then I can just turn it on myself and be like, who do I think I am? So I guess that's an earache feel like a fraud? And it is kind of seeing what I want. So yeah, I want to be like Marie Forleo, who doesn't, or at least have that kind of success with that kind of product? And so I see what I want. And I'm just not very yet in it. I guess that I again, I don't know that it's feeling like a fraud, but it certainly doesn't feel good.

Emily Thompson 11:41
We're saying all of this and being super open about our fraudulent feelings. Just to sort of illustrate that, that it's this kind of part of the process. And, and you, you have to like move past it. So let's, let's talk about how to move past.

Kathleen Shannon 11:57
Well, I was going to say even just in that fate in our Facebook group thread there. Whenever I ask people it makes you feel like a fraud. I mean, we probably had over 30 comments.

Unknown Speaker 12:07
Yeah, and

Kathleen Shannon 12:08
just everyone else replying. They were like, Wow, I didn't realize that everyone else had these feelings. So it is kind of shining a light on that. shining a light on those feelings will make it feel less bad.

Emily Thompson 12:21
Yes. Yeah. Well, and I think I think this podcast is, for example, like Kathleen and I, I pitched this cat this podcast to Kathleen, three months ago. Yeah, there's only three months ago. And we both had moments where like, Who are we to like to do a podcast? One because neither of us had ever, like done a podcast? And who were we to share this content with people? And who's gonna listen to it? I mean, we definitely had these like, fraud feelings, or

Kathleen Shannon 12:48
there's like another? Well, you know what I mean, it's self doubt, it is. God is his feelings of self doubt. And so what I would do if you're feeling like a fraud, or you have imposter syndrome, or you are feeling jealous, is to really figure out why you feel that way. So like, ask yourself, why, why do I feel like a fraud right now and really look at the triggers, or the behaviors that are sparking these feelings, like what is literally happening whenever you feel this way. So someone else in the Facebook group said, Every time she talks to her mom, and her mom doesn't understand her job as a creative entrepreneur. And I think a lot of our parents don't, but that it makes her feel like a fraud. And so if that happens every time you talk to your mom, find, and she said that afterwards, she'll call her best friend who totally gets what she's doing. It's like, maybe you just save the creative entrepreneur conversations for just your best friend. Or if, for me, it happens whenever, like one of my triggers, and behaviors that's happening whenever I feel these feelings is whenever I'm just consuming other people's work. And especially when I'm looking at not necessarily competitors, because I don't, I don't really believe in competitors. I feel like there's enough room for everyone. And that's my hippie woowoo self coming out. But certainly feeling like, Oh, I wish I was there already. And so it's time to get back to work. But that gets into later in our show notes, all the other stuff. I can't help I'm jumping ahead of myself.

Emily Thompson 14:28
No, it's fine. Um, well, and I agree with that completely. Like you have to figure out what it is that you're doing that's making you feel like a fraud and figure out how you can fix it. One of the one of the ways that I like to think about it is the idea that everything you do in life, like everything you do from like, learning how to set up to making your first big investment is the first time you've done it. And so I think a lot of people have that the feeling of being a fraud whenever they're asked to do something they'd never they've never done before, or especially if they're getting paid to do something that They've never actually done exactly like that before. But that's just that's just part of the process is you have to sort of get out of your comfort zone and, and do do new things and get over that, like self doubt. And those fraudulent feelings. I'm gonna start calling them fraudulent feelings. Can I call them? No? Yeah,

Kathleen Shannon 15:18
that sounds like fun. So funny because you're talking about like, you have to learn how to do things for the first time. And obviously, with my one year old, and I don't know if you experienced this with Lily, who is now seven. And so like watching our kids try new things for the first time, Fox is so little that he, he's not self conscious at all, about trying new things, he just gets mad about it. And maybe that's how I feel. And I'm trying new things. Like I just get mad about it. So I think that speaks to like perfectionist tendencies. But then. So it's interesting, like what we can learn from our kids who are trying things for the first time, like, what is how does Lily approach things? Like Will she give up? If she can't do it good the first time? Or does she keep trying?

Emily Thompson 16:03
Um, it depends on what it is. I mean, she's, she always makes me really proud of like how persistent she can be, which is both pride and anger, sometimes it how persistent she can be. But she definitely has moments where she'll be doing something just sort of like have a moment of temper tantrum of like, I can't do this. But but it's kids bounce back so easily. And like, I'm sad that adults lose that right guess as as you get older is you let frustration stop you. Whereas kids will let frustration they'll deal with it for a minute. And hopefully, they'll they'll just do it again until they get it right. And I think that's that's kind of part of it is they don't let this sort of self doubt or fear of of being unworthy or whatever. stop them from trying again and again and again till we get it right.

Kathleen Shannon 16:51
Yeah. So I was going to say like that, I think that one way to conquer feelings of fraudulent feelings is to is to stop trying to get better at this stuff that you suck at and just focus on the stuff that you're really good at. But what we're just saying here makes me question that actually, because kids try over and over and over again, even if they suck at something they keep trying. So I guess it's stop trying to get better at the stuff you suck at. If you hate doing it.

Emily Thompson 17:25
Yes, that's what I was about to say is it's not about whether or not you're good at it, it's whether or not you like doing it. I mean, if if you want to learn how to code a website or something, and you are like don't, right, you are determined to do it. But you get into it, you really hate it like don't, you know, do some soul sucking work to do something that you don't want to do find someone to do it and you go find something you want to do. My big thing is, is always be learning, always be learning, but also learning what you like to do and what you don't like to do. So wasting tons of money to go back to school to be, I don't know, a graphic designer, when you actually hate being a graphic designer, and you want to find something else is a waste, like find the things that you want to learn and then learn them. And it always kind of baffles me how that that idea of being like a lifelong learner is always kind of put on the back shelf. Like I'm one of those people I love to learn new things love to a couple of months ago, I told David I was like, I need to learn like this new like web coding language. Like it's just a thing. I feel like for me to move forward, I just need to learn it. And he kind of like looked at me kind of funny. And he's like, it always kind of baffles me how Okay, you are was just like learning something new. And I was like, What do you mean, like, don't you? Like why wouldn't you just want to go learn something new. And I think I think having that mindset of just never stopping learning something new is so important for moving forward and just constantly being a sponge of what's going around you but also what you feel about the things that you're learning is really important.

Kathleen Shannon 19:05
All right, let's pause for a second and talk about our sponsor fresh books.

Fresh books is the easy to use invoicing software designed to help creative entrepreneurs get organized, save time invoicing, and get paid faster. But I like to think of fresh books as my personal accountant. I actually use and love fresh books. I started using fresh books about four years ago when I was still freelancing as a solopreneur. I knew I needed to track my income and expenses. And whenever I researched all the different accounting software out there, fresh books just truly felt the most intuitive and the easiest, but in the time that I've been using fresh books, the functionality of it has grown and is so legit and robust. Even as my business has grown freshbooks always accommodates my business needs. So now we use freshbooks as the financial hub of our business. Stay on top a year. business with a clear picture of its financial health and try fresh books for free today. Go to freshbooks comm slash being boss and enter being boss in the How did you hear about us section? That you and I have both read enough books from experts, and probably the one thing that they all have in common is they're all constantly learning something new. I don't know that it's necessarily tech skills or likeness skill necessarily. I think especially the, maybe the older you get, when is old dog new tricks. Right? Right. We

Unknown Speaker 20:34
are horrible at

Emily Thompson 20:37
just not trying.

Kathleen Shannon 20:39
My sister always makes fun of me. She says that I'm like, is she she jokes that, you know, I just sound like English isn't even my first language when idioms and cliches because I never I always mix them and I never know what they are. Yeah. Okay. So what I was going to say about that, though, is that there's something so liberating, like, it's nice to always learn more. And I think that just reading new books and watching TED Talks, that kind of stuff is really great again, but that's the stuff that sometimes makes me feel bad. Like, yeah, I'm not there. But so I was going to say there's something like liberating about just letting it go. And so my example of this and like the stop doing stuff that you suck at, is, whenever I was still working in advertising, my sister was actually my creative director. And I worked in advertising for five years. And she has like her background is and we both have a background in graphic design. And then she went more into the copywriting route. And I went more into the like, hardcore graphic design side of things. And but she could do it all. And I felt like nobody's working under her. She expected me to do at all, which I think she kind of did. And she was trying to groom me to become a copywriter. And I would try and it was just awful. Like, especially ad copy is awful. I just not good at it. I love writing for my blog, and I love writing for talks and stuff like that, and like writing out our agendas for this podcast. But I cannot write ad copy to save my life. And I still don't write our client ad copy even though I think maybe I could now. But after just watching Tara and our brand director, Liz do it for so long. Anyway, I remember one day just saying, I think I was crying. And I came to her and I said I just can't do copy. And she was like, You know what, let's just take you off of trying to ever even do copies stop trying to figure it out, just focus on design. And it was so liberating. It was like I didn't realize what a weight had been on me until it was lifted. And so I would challenge and invite our listeners to ask yourself, like, what have you been trying to do that you don't like doing that you could just liberate yourself from if you just said, I'm going to stop doing this thing?

Emily Thompson 23:01
Yeah, I have a perfect example of that as well. So a couple of years ago, I guess, I don't know, two years ago, yeah, two years ago, I had sort of like hit a ceiling in my business where like, I was doing all the work. And I was making as much money as I could because I couldn't work anymore. I need to like figure out what I need to change in my business. And it was one of those things where I was doing, like the financial side of my business, I was doing all the invoicing, and I was doing like all the money things. I was even like prepping for taxes. I was doing like all of that gross stuff myself. And, and I remember sitting down with David one day, and this is whenever David became my like business manager. I sat down with David one day and I was like, I can't do this. Like I cannot run a business like this. And it's like I felt like a fraud. like trying to run a business. I knew nothing about like finances and like how do how to run the financial side of a business. And so it was one of those moments where I just wanted to had a sit down with him and say, What do we need to do to fix this because I was sucking at managing like the money side of my business and doing all the client work on top of it. And that was the point where David said, don't worry about it anymore. Like I will take over the side of your business. And I will do it for you and I will get your budget figured out and I will take care of your bookkeeping. And two years later, he runs the business side of my business completely by himself and does a fantastic job at it. And so now I don't have to feel like a fraud entrepreneur who's trying to build a business but can't even handle my own bookkeeping, because I was able to stop doing the thing that I was really sucking at and hand that off to someone else so that I could be really amazing at what I was good at. Yeah,

Kathleen Shannon 24:43
I think that whenever it comes to being a business owner and wearing a lot of hats, which you do at first, and you can really feel like a fraud whenever you don't know it all. But here's the deal. To be an expert. You don't have to know it all. To be a good business owner, you don't have to do it all. So I think that it just comes down to getting really clear on what you are best at getting really clear on your core genius. And rocking that out. Hey, me

Emily Thompson 25:19
completely agree with that finding, finding that clarity for yourself is huge. And I agree with the expert comment. I remember whenever I first started working with braid A long time ago, you guys like made me like sit down and claim my like web design expertise because I was having a problem like calling myself an expert, for no good reason. I was doing it. And I was launching websites. And I had clients who loved me and love the websites that I was giving them. But it was like one of those self doubt things like, Can I really call myself an expert. And I felt like a little bit of a fraud saying that until you guys like sat me down was like Emily, you've got to own this because you can't move forward until you own your expertise. And I remember like, sitting down with it and like having like thoughts about it. And I remember coming to the realization that claiming you're an expert doesn't mean that you're claiming that you know, everything doesn't mean that you're claiming to be fault free, or that you can answer everyone's questions. And remember writing a blog post and saying something to the effect of even superheroes need sidekicks.

Unknown Speaker 26:22
Yes, I

Unknown Speaker 26:23
remember that.

Emily Thompson 26:24
Yeah, because it's true. It's true. I mean, claiming your expertise or or moving forward in your business doesn't mean that you are not going to make mistakes. You can't live your life or build a business without making occasional mistakes. And once you can wrap your head around that and get used to it, it's all fine and dandy.

Kathleen Shannon 26:40
So I guess like, I'm thinking here that the opposite of feeling like a fraud is probably feeling like an expert. And so many people put that title expert on a pedestal, and they attach a story to it. And so whenever I think about an expert, I think about someone who knows everything, someone who never makes mistakes. So essentially someone who is perfect, and that doesn't exist. Nope. Perfection is not real. And so I think if you can just redefine I mean, we've talked in earlier episodes about redefining professional, it is being able to embrace your expertise by defining what that looks like for you. So we have an entire section in our brain ecourse about just embracing your expertise and what that really means. And in one part, we talked about how for every, like if you're an expert, like let's say you're a fourth grader, and you want to be an expert, fourth grader, you might feel really bad if you're looking at high school students, and you're like, oh, but they're so much better than me. But here's the deal. There are always third graders and second graders and first graders to your fourth grader. So sometimes to be an expert, you just need to be two steps ahead of who you're helping.

Unknown Speaker 28:02
Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 28:02
yes.

Unknown Speaker 28:03
Oh, yes, that's

Emily Thompson 28:04
exactly what it means. Oh, this is something I felt a lot recently as I'm like, moving into much more of a coaching role is that I don't have it all figured out. And actually even this podcast, like we tell people this all the time, we do not have this all figured out. Like if we did we would be millionaires right now. And we wouldn't be like we would not be recording a podcast. We'd be laying on a beach with cocktails.

Kathleen Shannon 28:25
That's not true. So I started listening to we would we would be doing the work. We would we were millionaires. Yeah. I'm just gonna throw that out there. Yes. But I was listening to the Ask Gary Vee show yesterday that his podcast and he did. I was just putting it all together because I'm not familiar with his work, which now I feel stupid because he's like a great deal. The book and you mentioned it to me before Emily. It's called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Okay. So I was listening to his podcast, and he talked about that book. And I actually saw I was on a walk with my baby pushing the stroller listening this podcast. And he said, and this just yesterday, he goes, if you're calling yourself an entrepreneur, and you're not working 16 to 17 hours a day, you're full of shit. And I'm sitting there like walking my baby in this really nice weather, thinking about like our podcasts and listening to this podcast and just trying to continually learn more about growing my business and being an entrepreneur and investing and all that and I'm in the middle of the day, it's 3pm. And I'm taking my baby for a walk. Yeah, I was like, Well, I'm not working 16 or 17 hours a day, am I full of shit? And sorry,

Emily Thompson 29:36
like, you have to think about that too. Because I usually spend about eight hours a day in the studio. Generally, sometimes more. I definitely will pull a 12 hour day occasionally. But only because I sincerely love what I do. And I look at the clock and I'm like, Oh my god, it's like eight o'clock at night. It's dark outside like we've been having so much fun. But whenever I leave the studio quite often I go home and I go upstairs to the bedroom. And I usually give myself like 30 minutes of like, defrost time. And we're like, I just need to like, get in the headspace of like home life. But that means that I have my iPad and I'm going through Instagram and I'm liking all the being boss photos or I'm on Twitter, tweeting or reading or retweeting or whatever. Like, I'm still kind of working. And then I'll go down to dinner and after dinner, Dave and I will sit and talk about what we're doing the next day, or what our big plans are or what our big next big move is. So in a lot of ways, like, I may not be hardcore hustling 17 hours a day, but I'm definitely like in the entrepreneurial mindset. Yeah, 16 to 17 hours, except I actually sleep a lot though. So I'm not eating awake 17 hours a day,

Kathleen Shannon 30:50
you know, and I wonder like, how much of it again, I know, I bring this up. And I know that lots of guys listen to our podcast too. But I wonder if it is something with us being women and moms with a family. I mean, sorry, Gary Vee, but I can't work 1617 hours a day, whenever I have a one year old baby. And but even if you don't have kids, you are still an entrepreneur, and you can still be an expert without working 1617 hours a day. And I like that he challenged my thinking on that. And he challenged my work ethic, because then I could come back around and feel really good about what I'm doing. because like you said, I'm my job and being boss, this podcast. It's like my baby. And I'm working on it really hard to and I'm constantly thinking about it. So I just thought it was kind of interesting that right?

Emily Thompson 31:45
You know, I don't feel like a fraud entrepreneur, because I'm not in the studio 17 hours a day. So I'm going to erase that like variation or that version of, of entrepreneur and use my own with no doubt about it.

Unknown Speaker 31:59
No self doubt about it.

Emily Thompson 32:01
Alright, so let's talk about like how to deal with this, this fraud mindset a little bit more. And talk about some like good habits you can get into to just constantly battle, the the thoughts that pop into your head about why am I doing this? Or who do I think I am trying to do this, you go first, me go first. Um, so for me, I love to do this, like test and change thing. And I do this a lot with my clients, I have a couple clients, I think that at this point, I'm kind of tired of hearing it. Because one of my biggest philosophies for simply like moving forward in business and really doing anything is that you're never going to get it right the first or you're rarely going to get it right the first time. Because we are not born with all information in our brains, we are not like these all knowing beings, is not what we do. So it's just about being okay with testing and changing. And if you put something into play, whether that's a new service, or pricing structure, or how you send emails, and if it doesn't work for you change it. And I think being nimble like that, in your life in business is huge for recognizing that any fraudulent feelings you may be having can be temporary, or at least shut them down, because you're learning. And I think I think you actually do become a fraud. If you are okay with not learning anymore and not testing

Kathleen Shannon 33:24
Yes. Like whenever you think you know all the answers. Yeah, that's when you're probably a fraud.

Unknown Speaker 33:30
No, you don't know all the answers.

Kathleen Shannon 33:32
Okay. So I think that both of you and I are really good about launching before we're ready. And I think that that's what keeps a lot of creative entrepreneurs from actually doing this thing is that they want everything to be ready, and they want everything to be perfect. And I coach a lot of creatives who want things to be perfect and ready out of the gate. And so even this podcast, we just kind of made it happen. But here we are 12 episodes in and we've got we're figuring it out. Yeah, even with the YouTube video, we were talking about how we need to have an intro and maybe we do some like voiceover over a slide. And I was like, I don't want to deal with editing it, but I want to get it up. So maybe next time we'll do that or maybe next time we'll have like a little being boss cardboard image that we can hang up in front of the screen so that we can do less editing. But again, like I think it is about kind of you said test and change. I think it's also launching before you're ready. Yeah, just kind definitely stepping into it. So I'm reading um, is it Anne Lamott, or Annie Lamott? Who I don't know. Okay, so her name is Anne Lamott, and she read a book called Bird by Bird and I'll be sure to include that in the show notes. And it's for writers and she's writing on writing and how to become a better writer. And one of the things that she talks about are your shitty first drafts. And Becky Murphy, who's a friend and illustrator, she gives a whole talk She gave a whole talk at the circle's conference, I'll include a link to that about embracing your shitty first drafts also. And so

Unknown Speaker 35:07
I think that is part of it is just having a shitty first draft

Kathleen Shannon 35:12
and being okay with it and knowing that you can always go back and change and update later.

Emily Thompson 35:19
Yeah, definitely. I mean, everything I've ever launched everything you've ever logged, I mean, everything is it's always a first draft, or at least like maybe third draft sometimes. But even then, like I launched indie boom, a year ago, it was a program that I just sort of like, made up. But based on like, all the work that I've done with my clients, and then when I relaunched it this year, it looked different, like, welcome to draft number two, yeah, because you test it, and then you change. So I tested it for a year with my clients. And I saw what worked and what didn't. So whenever I relaunched it, I erased all the like, pieces that didn't work as well and replace them with the ones that did. And that's just that's how you play the game. Yeah, custom chain,

Kathleen Shannon 35:58
I think and braid. What we do is we're kind of more like refining and tweaking as we go. And so with the braid method, we send out a start deck where we're asking certain questions. We're constantly refining that deck, so we can ask better questions. Yeah. And so again, tweaking and refining as you go, nothing is permanent, and everything is always changing.

Emily Thompson 36:20
Yes. Oh, actually a great example of this. So do you see the apple keynote recently? No. Kathleen, I used to get nerdy or

Kathleen Shannon 36:29
I thought about subscribing to yesterday on my walk after listening to Gary Vee telling me that I'm full of shit because I'm racing

hours a day. I thought I need to start subscribing to like fast CO and

Emily Thompson 36:44
uncensored is my favorite podcast at the moment. I love it. It's a really quick one. And they just talk about like the business landscape. Really quickly, like a couple of like Business News. It's really great. And and I will just sort of to say something nicer about Gary Vee for a second. I love his book and I need you to read it. Oh,

Kathleen Shannon 37:02
I know. So I knew that you read it. So I was like either Emily can give me the cliff notes or I should say this too because I actually really enjoyed everything he was saying. He cusses a lot and he's like oh, and because like you're the customer but okay note he does not have a little red e next to his podcast on him and he literally every other word he's cussing, which I don't have a problem with at all. I love it. Right? It made me think like we need get the little red e off of our

Emily Thompson 37:30
No, I love it. It's like a badge of courage for me.

Kathleen Shannon 37:35
Like I can say whatever

Emily Thompson 37:36
I want. I can and now no one can get mad at me about it. It's perfect. So no I do love his book though. And just like give that a shout out while we're talking about it as far as social media goes. I read his book over Christmas and I made I made Chris read it in the studio as well. And started like implementing some things and like more than doubled my Instagram following in two months. Wow. Just based on like the knowledge that's in that and we've been like doing some things on Twitter and Facebook to and it's huge. You know

Kathleen Shannon 38:03
what else will double your Instagram following? What have a baby? Oh, I

Emily Thompson 38:08
know right? No, thanks. I don't need Instagram followers that you did though you you really like grew a mom following I

Kathleen Shannon 38:17
grew up Big Mom following you had a baby. I try not to post photos of him anymore. Sorry. I keep the railing the conversation. So what I say

Emily Thompson 38:25
is, I don't remember. He's talking about Gary Vee the

Kathleen Shannon 38:29
book is good. But Jab, Jab, Right Hook you were talking about social media

Emily Thompson 38:34
testing? I don't know. Regardless, it will probably come back to me in a minute. Another thing that I like to do whenever I'm feeling like a fraud, is to sit down and find proof that I'm not. Yeah, is no one's have proof that you're not self doubt is one of those feelings that will just come out of nowhere. Like, I can go home and want to make a thing of soup. And like, I'm good at making soup. But like self doubt, feelings can occasionally just sort of creep up. And the the key I think, is to like put them to rest. Just simply like find whatever proof you need. So if someone is contacting you to do a project. And, for example, the comment that said she couldn't believe someone was wanting to pay for something so easy. It's easy for you, but is it easy for them? And is it going to be worth it for them to pay you to do it. And if people have paid you to do it in the past, and they've gotten really great results, there's your proof, it's worth it to force someone else to pay you to do it. And so you can sort of create those like little proof scenarios constantly and anything where you can prove to yourself that those self doubt feelings that you're having are totally just bullshit.

Kathleen Shannon 39:43
Okay, can I share an actual exercise that people can do to find a zoo? Okay, so this is an actual exercise that we take our braid method clients through what I want you to do, unless you're driving or working out, but maybe later, get out a sheet of paper and draw two big circles on it. That are overlapping in the middle, and on the left circle and label it past and on the right circle, label it future. And I want you to write down five of your biggest victories ever, but or it could be more business related. So five big victories in your past that have already happened. And that's kind of what you were talking about Emily, your proof. I also think that again, we talked about feeling like a fraud whenever we're trying new things, or whenever we have a whole bunch of ideas of things that we want to accomplish, and we don't know how to get there. So in your future circle on the right, I want you to write down like five big dreams, right. And so Emily, you even said that you get overwhelmed whenever you get lost in your big picture. And it can make you feel like a fraud. So I want you to put those kinds of big dream visions like the who do, I think I am dreaming this big vision, I want you to hit that in the right circle. And then the middle overlap is like your present priorities. And these are the things that you need to focus on to get where you want to be. And so some of it is honoring your past accomplishments, but also kind of like moving forward from them, but taking what you can from it and bringing into your present overlap. So like for example, I, I don't really have a good example.

Emily Thompson 41:22
I have a good Okay, have a great, so. So going back to the same comment about she can't believe people are paying her to do what she does so easily. Yeah, um, one of my let's let's good example, one of my past ones is just the fact that I've been coding websites for five years, actually, I've been coding websites for like 12 years, no, probably more than that very long time. So at this point, for him, that's like a past accomplishment, like I am an expert at coding some websites. And so what's a big future vision, a big future vision is to Oh, is to build out my studio. So I don't have to code as many websites anymore. Which is, is a big goal of mine. So that I don't, I don't want to be a 40 year old web designer, that is not my goal in life. So for me is to set up enough in the studio so that I can I can do designs, or maybe have someone else do designs one day and have someone else code it. So have a have a studio that doesn't need me as much as it currently needs me. So I think a really great overlap in that and well, that is the overlap is I have the experience, and I have the future goal. And so what are

Kathleen Shannon 42:29
your present overlap, like the proof from the past? And then the future vision? Like how would you say that those combined in your present priorities,

Emily Thompson 42:38
I think it's just just teaching like, I need to take how I code things and how I do it really efficiently and cleanly. and turn it into almost like a teaching module that I can teach someone here or maybe maybe even a future ecourse, who knows about about how it is that that I code websites and that proof piece in that, I think in going back to the idea of having people pay me to do something that I can do easily, like I can go to website up so clean and so fast. And I love doing it, like I get really nerdy and I hunker down here with my blanket and my like hot tea, and I will code for like four hours. And then I'll have a site almost done. And there's a couple of hours, I used to feel bad about the fact that people paid me to do something that I did so easily. But I also remember how long it took me to gain the experience to do it as quickly and as easily as I want. And that sort of proof piece, maybe I don't care, you will pay me a ton because it will be d it will be coded cleanly and very quickly. Okay, so

Kathleen Shannon 43:40
here's one for me that kind of maybe brought up some Friday feelings, which is, um, as I

Emily Thompson 43:48
was taking me Friday changing feelings.

Kathleen Shannon 43:53
Whenever I was taking our clients through the braid method, it would get really personal really fast. And that's whenever Tara and I noticed in our work that there is a huge blend in our personal lives and our professional lives. And that who we are at work affects how we live at home. So I decided to get life coach training with Martha Beck. And so I'm in a seven month training with a bunch of other what they call cadets. And you're supposed to get 30 hours of training and like practicing life coaching. And so I thought, well, if I'm going to do 30 hours of training, I want to get paid at least a little bit for it. So I launched a small life coaching offering and I think I was literally charging maybe like 30 bucks a session. And now I charge at least 20 $500 for like a six week session. So it's quite significantly more and I grew. I grew that number from $30. A session to 20 $500 for six sessions. In About, I would say, a year. And I was still watching some of the other cadets, though, who were really talented, but maybe didn't quite have the platform that I had not get any clients. And so I started to feel funny. But then I think it's embracing that I'm just naturally it's, it's a natural talent, the coaching, and I love doing it. And it comes easily, and I'm getting clients, why am I feeling bad about it? And so I think that's it is it came too fast.

Emily Thompson 45:32
So I think that that's it, if I may, yeah, because I think I think what where your proof comes from is the work that you've done. And what has probably happened, and I don't know these other people, but maybe they didn't get gung ho, about about starting that expertise as quickly as you did, or, or marketed as much, or the fact that you had been blogging for how many years Exactly, and building up that following so that you had the people to pitch it to that actually purchased it. So I think proof comes from just looking in the past and seeing all the work that you have done, and like realizing if it's actually worth it. And I think in your case is definitely worth it because you have the experience behind you to like be that proof, and they just don't have that experience, or they're not doing the work now to prove that they had that experience. Hmm, makes sense.

Kathleen Shannon 46:25
totally makes sense. And one of the other things that I think you can do whenever you have frosty feelings, probably feelings, is to get really clear on what you're doing to define your role, and write it down on paper. And so Tara and I are constantly having little summits with each other. We're we're talking about the future of braid, but we're really talking about our roles within our organization. And so even recently, this last weekend, we had one of those tough business conversations, where we were talking about my sister and I were talking about being boss, and Emily and I like we were talking about our partnership. And what that means for braid, what it means for indie shop biography, what it means for the future of being boss, what if we want to expand and grow this beyond being boss? How does that work? And so just getting really clear on your role. And okay, so another example, even when we started this podcast, I was like, okay, we can do a podcast, but I am not going to edit it. Like I just know that that's not my strength. And you're like, it's cool, I can do it. And we naturally fell into leadership roles, but like within our own ways of what we're doing for the podcast. So I think that that's been really cool. Just, I guess, testing it out, and changing and tweaking along the way, and seeing what rises to the top. So that's another one is just just give it time and see what rises to the top.

Emily Thompson 48:01
Yeah, I see what you're good at, see what you suck at, or simply don't want to do and go from there. I agree. I think clarity. I feel like clarity plays such a huge role in everything that we talk about. But I think it's clarity with with what you do like in your business, but also clarity and what you do for your clients. But as I feel like a lot of those frauding feelings come whenever whenever expectations from clients end up being miscommunicated or not communicated, or whatever that may be clarity in all parts of your business, I think will will keep those self doubt feelings from coming up. Because you're clear on what you're doing.

Unknown Speaker 48:41
Yes,

Emily Thompson 48:42
so I want to talk about boundaries for half a second Wait,

Kathleen Shannon 48:46
I'm sorry to interrupt one more thing because it's on your list and you didn't really cover it. But I think it's really important is to trust that you'll know what to do when the time comes trusting yourself is huge whenever it comes to embracing your expertise.

Emily Thompson 49:02
It is it is and I wrote that down. I can't believe I missed that one because that's like my shining one today is is I believe so much in trusting that you will know the answers when the time comes. So for me with my big dreams of like investing in businesses and like really sort of helping entrepreneurs for the rest of my life. And these really big dreams that I have whenever I have these like fraudulent feelings. Um, I always I always have to sit and like stop myself and say okay, Emily, right now your core purpose is doing is rocking out and Debian projects for your clients. And you will know what the next step is when the time comes. And that sort of helps me like dissipate whatever whatever frosty feelings I'm having, because I simply trust that the path will will illuminate itself.

Kathleen Shannon 50:00
No, I go Oh, true, it is so true. And I have found it more and more in my business whenever I set an intention, and I say it out loud for what I want. So okay, let's talk about this. Emily. Three, four years ago, we decided we want to do a workshop together. Yeah, total failure completely

Emily Thompson 50:20
flopped one person sign up, and we refunded, we refunded them.

Kathleen Shannon 50:25
But now, what, four years later, you have this platform where we're actually planning on having a little retreat? Yeah. And it's probably going to happen. If not, we're still

Emily Thompson 50:37
going to it's going to happen. Why don't you talk? We're

Kathleen Shannon 50:39
gonna hang out on the beach together either way. But now it might actually happen. It happened four years later. Yeah. So you, we did the work things, we did the work, and you have to let things unfold on their own timeline. And just trust that, by having that idea in the first place, is enough.

Emily Thompson 51:00
Yes.

Unknown Speaker 51:00
I mean, obviously, you stopped,

Emily Thompson 51:03
imagine if we had not done anything else ever. We failed that one time. I

Kathleen Shannon 51:08
mean, we kind of did stop that I never knew I could have never imagined that it would have come full circle. But we did the work. And so I I'm, I'm saying contradicting things. And I think that that brings up something else put a pin in that thought, because it brings up something else that someone else on our Facebook said, But um, I think that, you know, we talk so much about doing the work, but sometimes having an idea is enough. And you have that idea, you let the path unfold along the way. And because you have the idea, you can spot it a little bit easier whenever the opportunity arises on your path. Yeah, so um, so the opportunity has arise again for us. And we're going to make it happen and so do that. But I wanted to mention really quick that someone else on our Facebook, she is a, like a holistic nutritionist. And she's a good friend of mine. So I'm just gonna say her name, I don't think she'll mind. But my friend, Claire, and she has a website called video cleanse calm, and I'll include it in the show notes. But one of the things that she struggles with is being a very highly spiritual person, but then also being a business woman. And I think a lot of Yogi's and wellness professionals struggle with this, because they don't know how to balance their desire to do good in the world with their desire to make bank. And I see that a ton. So Claire said that she was talking to her, like, are you Vedic coach, and her coach said, Listen, you just need to embrace these dualities in yourself, you are going to have contradictions in yourself. And if you can embrace them, you won't feel like a fraud anymore. So I love that I thought it was really valuable. And

Emily Thompson 52:59
I completely agree with that.

Unknown Speaker 53:01
High five, high five, high fact

Emily Thompson 53:03
that Amen. So so going back, though, for a second with the idea of setting these goals. So you and I had a goal a couple years ago, they were going to do this workshop, we set the goal, we tried it, then it didn't work. But it was still something that was like on our horizon. Like we never like I never emailed you and said, You know what, Kathleen, this fell on everyone speak to you, I think it wasn't anything like that. I mean, we shut it down. And we just sort of didn't talk about it for a while. And we like kept on our path, like working our little asses off doing what we do, and keeping in touch and becoming really good friends. So we set these goals. And then you just sort of have to take baby steps. And I think I think one of the best things that you can do. And this works better for like more short term goals sometimes than long term goals, because like I said, the the path and you'll figure it out as you go. But for short term goals is about defining those baby steps. Because baby steps are much easier and less intimidating to take, then the big steps to whatever big goal that you finally taken. So if you like really want to get over these frosty feelings, then then define those baby steps and then do the work. Like actually start making it to your

Kathleen Shannon 54:08
Yeah, get out of your head and actually do the work. So like you and I could have been like, oh, let's start a podcast. And it's been three months just planning it.

Unknown Speaker 54:17
But you know what we did? We literally

Kathleen Shannon 54:19
got on the phone the next day and hit record and launched our podcast. Was it perfect? No, it doesn't matter, because now we're actually doing it. So I

Emily Thompson 54:30
think as a kid, I definitely had moments to where we were like, what are we doing, like who we had some frauding feelings in the very beginning like those first couple of, of emails and talks that we had where we just sort of like laid it out. Like here's what we want to do, but here's how I actually kind of feel about it. What do you think? and Kathleen would be like Emily, it's fine, or I'd be like Kathleen get over it.

Kathleen Shannon 54:54
I think we had a big Friday feeling winner. We had a pretty big flop of an interview. View.

Emily Thompson 55:01
Yeah, so

Kathleen Shannon 55:02
I'm just going to tell people that it happened that we had our first interview, and there are lots of reasons not to air it. But it just didn't go well. I didn't feel like I had any sort of control over the interview, I've, and I listened to a lot of podcasts, I listened to a lot of really good interviewers. So I felt like a total fraud, like, Who do I think I am, I can't even keep control of this conversation. There were also like tech problems and some other stuff that went awry, the universe said, Don't air it, don't air it. And so even after that, like my confidence was shaken. And so I would say like having the support system of Emily, like having a partner and I know that a lot of you don't have business partners, that's whenever you need to tap the rest of your creative pack.

Unknown Speaker 55:56
If you don't have a creative pack,

Kathleen Shannon 55:59
get on our Facebook group, because it's happening there. Everyone is so supportive there. And you will make friends in real life from that group to that you have to find a creative pack where you can share these feelings of insecurity so that you can get those self doubts out. And just be done with it.

Emily Thompson 56:17
Yeah, well, and I also think just, I guess, a final ish note on on these Friday feelings is something that you said in a previous episode about how like, how you have to create these pathways in your brain. And self doubt is something you train yourself to do over time. It's simply something that you begin as a child, or actually maybe a little past childhood, because you don't have as much self doubt as a child. But it's one of those things that you pick up and you just keep doing forever. And it's just one of those things, you have to train yourself to, like, get over it, like whatever self doubt you're feeling is just fear that you have to shove in the back of your head and move forward anyway. That like, and I'll say in YouTube, like I don't feel like a fraud very much anymore. Like, occasionally whenever I look at my big dreams I do, because they're big dreams. But but on a daily basis. I don't like Alison now emails, I will tell people like last year, I last year, I changed my web design projects from about 7000 for a project, and I jumped that price up to 24,000. And at that point moment, I felt like a fraud because I was doing 12 month engagements, and they were $24,000. I sold four of them. And like that is

Unknown Speaker 57:28
like I said, we're like done for the year.

Emily Thompson 57:31
Yeah, like pretty much. And so like just knowing that whenever there's self doubt feelings that you have our put them aside and move forward. Because that's whenever really crazy, amazing things happen. I had crazy self doubt, whenever I launched indie boom, I erased every product and service that I did in my business and replaced it with one program that came in six and 12 months. And I sold more of those 12 months 24 packages or $24,000 design packages than I did the two of the six month ones. So it's just about like, just get over it.

Kathleen Shannon 58:09
I think and I think that the reason why we don't feel like frauds so much anymore is because we've done a lot of work. And we've had a lot of success. And we've had many failures. And whenever you have that much stuff happening, like that's just a byproduct of doing the work is that you will have successes and you will have failures. And over time you will learn you'll just learn how to cope with the feelings, and you'll be able to reframe them and getting to a different mindset where you can use those feelings to fuel your business.

Emily Thompson 58:41
Yeah, I mean, at this point, if I ever feel frauding feelings, I almost take that as a sign that I'm doing something right like because I'm dreaming big enough or I'm doing something crazy enough, that is going to like put me on the map or not. I mean, this podcast being a perfect example. Like if we if we had kept with those phony failings, we would not have this podcast. But because we were able to set them aside and do it anyway. Like we're reaching tons of people and helping so many people with their, with their entrepreneurial journey.

Kathleen Shannon 59:11
And I think also they're like, every time, every time we hang up off of this podcast, we always have a little bit of a vulnerability hangover. But guess what, it doesn't stop us like we keep moving forward anyway. Because we kind of just give ourselves permission to suck. So if you feel like a fraud, just give yourself permission to suck and

Unknown Speaker 59:31
keep going.

Emily Thompson 59:32
Yeah, we're all human and mistakes happen and like ourselves aside, like think of anyone that you think of anyone that you admire, whether that is Marie Forleo or Gary Vee or Tony Robbins is someone who's in my actually both of our brain Bates at the moment, like those sorts of people, they didn't let self doubt stop them and they did not. And goodness knows they probably all felt fraudulent at one point, but it's just it's picking up and doing it anyway. Just to say See what happens because you can always test and change. Nothing in life is unfixable.

Kathleen Shannon 1:00:05
If you like what you've heard here today, you might like checking out some of our one on one services and digital products. I have a DIY coaching for creatives email series, it's $40 for four weeks of content delivered straight to your inbox, you can buy at any time, learn more and see if it's a fit for you at braid creative.com.

Emily Thompson 1:00:26
And if you're a creative entrepreneur who's ready to step up your online game with a cohesive and strategic brand and website that totally rocks your socks, and makes it easy for your dream customer to buy you visit me in geography and our one on one engagement in the boom where we work with you to build an online presence that's tailored specifically to you and your business. And the best part is that we do many of these projects in partnership with Kathleen and braid creative to pull in their branding and business visioning expertise so you get the best of both of our worlds and just the tools you need to build your dreams You can find us at indie Chicago, be calm.

Kathleen Shannon 1:01:06
Alright, thank you all for listening to being boss from Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon. Find our Show Notes for this episode at love being boss calm. You can listen to past episodes and subscribe to new episodes on our website at iTunes and on SoundCloud. If you like our podcast, please show us some love by reviewing being boss on iTunes and sharing it with a friend. Do the work be boss and we'll see you next week.

Like I mean just I bags

Emily Thompson 1:01:42
like to pack them up for your next vacation.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:45
I'm going to New Orleans tomorrow. I

Kathleen Shannon 1:01:47
can just like yeah, so you know you

Emily Thompson 1:01:50
got to carry ons right.

Kathleen Shannon 1:01:52
I hope they fit. I hope they don't exceed the limit.

Emily Thompson 1:01:58
Oh