Hey, john, how you doing? I'm fantastic. How are you, Chris? I'm doing great man. So what would you like to dive into during our time together today? So obviously, imposter syndrome, this is something I've struggled with still continue to struggle with, especially even create a course I was telling you about. That obviously was exposing itself. But also, I think that's attached to a lot of insecurity. And really a big thing for me is comparing myself to others. So when I look at other entrepreneurs, or other people that have built up courses, they talk about, like, the millions of dollars he generated, and I'm not there yet. But it's kind of like that, oh, what am I even doing? Can I even build a course? Can I even have an agency because like, for me, and my agency, the way I set it up was more so out of like, try to keep my costs down. So low overhead didn't really want your traditional employees. And so when I hear people talk about like, you're not a real business, unless you have payroll, you miss payroll, and it's like, Oh, okay. And so yeah, that kind of packages into that nice. imposter, feeling that I continue to feel it, but starting to after reading your book, and really kind of changing my relationship with it has been eye opening, but I know, I'm just barely scratching the surface. Yeah, yeah, totally understand. And I have trust me, I've been there. What? What would be a good outcome from our conversation today? Like, what would you love to take away from this? Yeah, I think it would be more so like, I'm aware of it. So I have awareness, I think some sort of tool, right? Some tool for my toolbox, where it's like, hey, when you're feeling this, maybe here's something that you can be thinking about, or I don't want to say distract, but just something of like, because obviously, it's going to come up, I don't think this is going to go it just me as a human being and struggling with insecurity from a young age. Right? It's like, how do I kind of change that and use that to my advantage? Almost. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Advantage interesting. But also being like, realistic about it, too. Like, it's okay to feel these feelings, but it's not okay to just sit and stay with it. Yeah, hold back, because it definitely kept me from taking action and a lot of procrastination, because of that fear. And that block. Yep. procrastination. That's a common. It's a common entrepreneurial trap. And in fact, I wrote in the book, if you haven't gotten there yet, you'll see it about this thing I call productive procrastination, which is when you work on, you work on the easy stuff as a means of distraction from the really important things that you're afraid to do or avoiding. Right. And as an entrepreneur, you can always find a million things to, to do in your business. You can work on your accounting, and you can tune up your website, and you can go do a bunch of, you know, administrative officee things, but you're really busy, right? But you're not landing clients. You're not making money, you're not moving the ball forward. You're just sort of spinning wheels and keeping the plates all Yeah, I think I think that's definitely like a protection mechanism for me, like, obviously, I have to do it. But it feels like at times, like convincing myself that an object in motion will stay in motion. But that's not necessarily the case in terms of putting on and it's funny, it's like, whenever I start to do the things that I naturally don't want to do, they end up being not that big of a deal. So I've created this wall. Yeah. Why? Yeah, yeah. What, what's an example of a time that you, you either avoided or procrastinate on something? And then when you finally did it, you look back and said, well, gosh, that wasn't that hard. You know, what it is, is writing proposals every time for my clients. I've done tons of them. There in my course, I train it. And every time I push it off, three days, four days, and then it's fine, like alright, I like I have to do it. And then I do it. On my credit. This took me maybe 40 minutes, maybe 45 minutes, and it's like one room. Why is this consistent block there? Yeah, yeah. How do you feel when you hit the send button on a proposal insecure every single time? Really? Yeah. So even though I have this weird disconnect of, like, I've generated $10 million plus for some of my clients generated 510 1000 leads from my clients and I'm disconnected from those results. So they're, I think it might be it's like the insecurity but imposter. And so as I've raised raised my rates with this process that I've created, I feel like I'm going to be found out I'm exposed and so did I have a typo in there Did, did I not write something how other proposals are being sent So it's just this kind of feeling that I've just dealt with like it is what it is. And then I kind of experienced that throughout the project. So when I submit the first design, it's the same feeling of like, what are you doing? Yeah, this isn't. Yeah, there's a, there's a nervousness about some one little error, or one little mistake is going to expose that you don't know what you're doing. Yeah. And you what really resonated me with your book is you talked about the not going to college, I dropped out of college twice. Right. Junior College at online college. I'm the guy that dropped out of junior college. And yeah, so I just taught myself to Google and out of necessity, how to do what I do. But I don't know what I don't know. So like, I look at other agencies and what other people are doing. And obviously, I don't know their process. So it's like, I immediately assume that I'm doing something worse than them because I didn't have the formal training. Yeah, yeah. What what I've seen happen, it's definitely happened in my life is I didn't go to college. So I feel like I'm not as educated as everyone. So I read a ton of books. And I study and I go take courses when I have an opportunity, and I just analyze and scrutinize and what happens is, I end up learning more and knowing more than the people that I'm intimidated by, in in an attempt to overcompensate for that lack of education. You know, I go way overboard, but still feel insecure? Because I don't know I don't have something to compare it against. That's really interesting. And kind of like a little light bulb went off with me is do you use when you feel like an imposter or you're feeling insecure? Do you use that to like, overcompensate. And for me what it looks like is when I submitted design, and make sure I explain every detail, look at every detail, because I don't want to get found out. Obviously, I wanted for my quality work and context. But like, I tried to make sure that I won't be found out which kind of has positive results in the quality of work. But yeah, this we're on our intuitive conflict. So the challenges that it does sort of push you to raise your game, right you're dotting every I you're checking every little detail because you want to be you want to measure up and you want to have high quality. And I wouldn't want to destroy that in you, I wouldn't want to tell you to back off and take it easy. And don't worry about the details. Because that's actually pushing you to greatness. It's just like any form of competition that forces people to, to level up and to try to be better than the competitor. The The question is, and the challenge for you is how can you keep that drive and that attention to detail, but dial back the anxiety that's associated with it? Yeah, to, to pull back on the stress, without just propping your feet up and taking it easy and actually losing the quality. Right? So it's trying to find that meat in the middle. So you know, we're away, like imposter syndrome can be a positive thing within the right context and making sure that you're it's a healthy version of it, I guess. It can be a driver just like, you know, if you if you look at the lives of a lot of really successful performers, particularly comedians, sadly, some of the best comedians, their, their comedy is driven from a painful place a childhood trauma, or, you know, a difficult upbringing or some things that have happened, they, a lot of really top performers had stress and strain in their life that that pushed them and maybe they use it as a defense mechanism, or they developed that muscle to counteract something but so, difficulty and the anxiety that you feel around you know, this imposter syndrome and feeling like maybe you don't measure up is a form of stress and difficulty that you have to work through. It does. It does produce good things in you, it can produce quality, it can cause you because like we've talked about, it drives you to, to get better, and, and to pay attention to the quality and the details and things. It is exhausting, but it is exhausting. Yes. And so what we want to do is we want to figure out some ways that you can think about maintaining your level of excellence and quality and that attention to detail, but grow the confidence that that level of detail you're giving is what makes you on par is what makes you you know, qualified and suitable and you do measure up to your competitors, because they may have gone about it a different way than you maybe they did complete college and get a degree but You've gotten other types of education and you've done some other things and and you want to maintain that drive to be the best. But pull back the stress and the anxiety, which a lot of that anxiety is about the unknown. Right that you don't know. Yeah. You don't know how they're going to respond to it. Yeah, you don't know how they're going to respond, you don't know what's going to happen. Now we can't, we can't fully eliminate unknown, we can't make it. So your life is absolutely completely predictable. And you know, everything that's going to happen, well, that would make it boring. And that would make it boring. Right. So. So the question is, how do you? How do you reframe that anxiety into anticipation? Oh, that's really good. The anxiety that you feel around sending a proposal is is largely anxiety is the is an expectation of a negative outcome. Right. But while the anticipation is an expectation of a positive outcome, and so it's the same emotion, anxiety, and anticipation are the same emotion. It's just about whether you're focused on what's the worst that could happen, or you're focused on what's the best that could happen? Wow, God, it's so simple. And I've overlooked that for 10 plus years, and not making that connection of it's very similar, if not the same, but it's, again, it comes back to like changing your relationship with it. A reframing is much better way that you put it of that really is the same thing. And why obviously, like, biology and the way that our brains are made up, we it's easy to go to the negative and that's natural for survival reasons, right. But yeah, it's just as much as going positive. Because when I get it gets tiring, right to be in my head, always, always, always in that in between, and I'm a person that like, probably needs more validation than normal. And so whenever I send that out, why did I choose this line of work? Yeah, right. Yeah, it's interesting. You mentioned biology, because physiologically, nervousness and excitement are the same thing. Really, that when you're nervous, and again, it goes back to nervousness and anxiety is a is a is a heightened emotional state and a in a physical state of adrenalin and an awareness and sensitivity, that your body is sort of heightened and poised to kind of the fight or flight for a negative outcome. Yeah, for the it's that fight or flight feeling is that anxiety. But excitement, physiologically is almost exactly the same. It's just that your body is preparing for something great, right? It's the adrenaline rush of feeling awesome, you're going to, you're expecting to see somebody that you haven't seen in a long time that you miss, or you're going to, you know, do something that you love to do, or you're going to, you know, you're anticipating something really awesome. And in your body chemically. And physiologically, it's it's nearly the same experience, which means that when you're stressed when you're anxious, when you're nervous, sometimes the common. The common wisdom, or the advice is to try to calm down to, you know, take a deep breath and slow your heart rate. And, and the reality is that, that doesn't work very well. A lot of it works. Quick physical stuff. That's like, okay, chill, but I'm still like, Yeah, but yeah, when there's still stuff going on up here, it's really hard to to calm your nerves. So if you can take that nervous energy and just refocus it as positive energy expectation, then it's a it's a mental shift that leverages the energy going on in your body rather than trying to suppress it. And that's a lot easier. So let's go back to the the earlier, when you talked about a proposal, you procrastinate a proposal, you struggle and wrestle with it. And then when you hit sin, you're anxious. Right? Yeah, I go to what did I, what did I do wrong? What did I miss? How am I going to screw it up? Well, what if you begin to train your brain to when you hit sin, to think about all the positive outcomes that could happen from this? Think about all the stuff you may have gotten, right? Sure, there might be a mistake or two in there. But think of all the things that you could have in your proposal that your client has never seen in any other proposal before. Yeah. And that's the thing is like, I've created this process where I know for a fact because 90% of the clients, I take this process, you have never done it before. And so it's like, I know this and it's still like it. Yeah. And it's it so really kind of comes down to You asking myself the opposite question. Right? Is that Yeah. Am I hearing that? Yeah, yeah. What could go right? What could go? Well, what, what's the potential here? What's the possibility for the good the upside? And this is, you know, this sounds really simple for me to sit here and just say Think positive, john, you'll be better. Right? It's, it's obviously easier said than done. But it is a muscle memory thing. If you consistently, every time you hit send on a proposal, you start to run through the checklist of what are all the things I missed, you're training your brain to, to expect a miss to expect a negative outcome to expect a fault, a flaw a mistake, something that's that's going to hurt you. And if instead, when you hit sin, you think, okay, the mistakes don't matter. Because a, I can't do anything about it at this point, it's gone. B, I've never made a mistake that was so big that it killed my business, right? It's not, that's true. It's, it's none of those mistakes are gonna kill you. So they're not worth worrying about and wrangling over. But if you take that, that mental and emotional energy of you just hit send, oh, my goodness, what, you know, I've, I've just poured into this, I'm exhausted, I'm anxious, and, and you just start thinking about, okay, what are all the possible ways that this can blow them out of the water? And that this can be a great opportunity? What are all the ways that this thing that I just sent? Let me think of all the different possible ways that my client can be wowed? by that? Yeah, that's interesting, because it's funny in a way that I'm selfish about it. And I'm just thinking about myself, but you mentioned something about how it has impact my client. And that is kind of a shift of going, Hey, it's not about me. It's about what this proposal can do for the client. So why not think about those positive whether or not they work, we work together, I've put together a strategy because I've invested the time through my human human process, the customer avatar session, and so they get something of value. So I should be, I'm probably about 1% of proposals doing that, right. And giving up going, Yeah, creating trust, whether or not we work together. Wow, that really resonated with me. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that perspective of taking the spotlight off of you, what's this going to do to me? and putting it on my client? What is this going to do for my client? Yeah, what is this going to do for them. And as you just pointed out, you've offered them some great strategies, that thing and ideas so that even if they don't choose to engage with you, they you've just given them something of value that they can do something with, it can make a difference. And what's funny is, a lot of times they come back, I had a client, so went through this process, it just didn't work out budgets, and it is what it is. Six months later, he I got an email saying let's go, let's pull the trigger. So it's like, okay, yeah, yeah, but still, or anything like that disconnect of I see the result, I logically know. But there's something that scared little boy in me that still, it's getting better than that kind of that that challenge. But I guess this isn't like, you're not going to hand me some magic switch to flip and it's going to be cured. This is a continuous. Yeah, it like I said, it's muscle memory, right? If you that, it starts with being conscious of it. Okay, I've done a proposal, feeling that anxiety I'm hitting send, the worry is there. And at first you have to do sort of the awkward, Okay, I'm gonna force myself to think about the positives to imagine all the ways that this will help my client to think of the ripple effect this will have when my client does better work, and they serve their clients better and, and, you know, all the different ways that what I just produced Can, can have a positive impact. And including, there'll be a financial return to you if they choose to work with you and those kind of things. So, you know, think about those positives and at first it's, it does feel sort of rote, and and prescriptive and cheesy. It's Yeah, it may feel a little cheesy, but again, it's, it's about muscle memory. It's about training yourself to, to ignore the the, all the possible negative outcomes, most of which will never happen, but your mind wants to ruminate on them. Yeah. And, and to focus on the the positive outcomes, the things that can come of this. And to remind yourself to have stories like the one you just told the client that six months later came and said, Let's go we're ready to pull the trigger. To remind yourself of all the other ways in the past that the work you have done, has had a positive effect on different clients, different companies, different organizations and teams, and And then to believe that I don't know yet what impact this is going to have on what I just did, but I know it will have some kind of an impact. Yeah, it's gonna do something really helpful. Now, let me ask you this. So it's funny because as you're saying this, I realized that I'm way too hard on myself, like, the voice in my head. Some of it is good, right? I use it, I mean, way too much. But some of it's good to motivate me, like, especially working out and I like to keep that in. I like that voice to, like, talk a little crap to myself so that I go to the gym. But yeah, it's to a point where it's definitely not healthy, because it's too much of like, You're worthless, you suck. You're not good enough and not enough like, like, encouraging myself, right? Like, I don't even know if I want to be friends with the guy that's in my head. That's right, you know, a friend of mine, actually. She was telling me about a friend of hers that that would talk down about herself. And she finally looked at her and said, don't talk about my friend that way. I'm not gonna put up with you talking about my friend. That way. Right? And so, and it startled this, this other woman who was, you know, talking herself down talking negative, because her friend was basically saying, I'm standing up for you, even if you're not going to stand up for yourself, because you're my friend, and I'm not gonna, I wouldn't put up with someone else talking that way about you, oh, it's a rendus. So you can you could do the same thing, right? If someone else was talking you down the way you let that voice in your head talk you down, you would you would do one of a couple of things, you would either confront them and make them stop, or at the very least, you would leave their presence and quit hanging out with them, quit listening to them. Oh, and do not, you would not put up with that wrong from someone else. And so you do have to sometimes talk back to that voice and say that that kind of talk is not welcome here. I don't want to hear it. I don't, I'm not accepting that I'm not believing that I'm not. I wouldn't believe it from anybody else. Why would I believe it from myself? Why would I accept it from the voice inside my own head? Now, of course, you can't leave the room. And from that voice, because it kind of tends to travel with you, which is why you have to be a little more forceful about it. So it's almost like I have to change my relationship with imposter syndrome, anxiety, and also myself. Yeah. And that's the, that's the key that the reason that I named this book overcoming the imposter is because I call that voice, that critic, the inner critic in your head, I call that voice, the imposter. And I do that to remind me that that voice isn't real. That voice is not a real person, that voice doesn't exist, that voice is the fraud. I'm not a fraud, the voice is a fraud. And you're saying your voice. And I am not that voice. I am not that negative voice inside my head. It is not, it doesn't reflect me. And so when I hear that voice, number one, I remind myself, that's not real. That's a psychological trap. That's a, that's a, that's a mindset trap that I can get out of that I can walk away from, that I don't have to listen to. And then in some cases, I speak back to that voice and say, I don't believe that for one second, I'm not going to listen to that I'm not going to put up with that I don't need that. I've, I have all this other evidence around me that I'm successful, that I'm doing a good job that I'm learning that I'm growing, that I'm doing these things. I'm not going to listen to the one voice that saying you're worthless, you're not going to make it you don't know what you're doing. You know, if you if you lined up 100 people and 99 of them said, john, you're you're doing great stuff, and I so admire you and I'm impressed by you. And one of them said, john, I don't think you've got what it takes me and you're not going to make it. Well, the natural Unfortunately, the natural out one guy is to focus on that one guy, right? But if you if you emotionally detach yourself and just look at it logically, and you say there's 99 people saying good things, and one attractor, the detractors probably the one that's wrong, not the 99 people. And and then you can start to logically shut out that detractor quit listening to him because there's all this other evidence. So yeah, again, changing the trigger is putting my energy focus on instead of the negative because like, as you were saying that I could feel like right here like, yeah, that guy got it. He's right, all your other 99 you don't really know what I'm talking about, which I think also impacts me when I do get compliments from friends, clients, whatever it feels like it just kind of hits and bounces and then doesn't really like sink in. Yeah. One of one of the symptoms of imposter syndrome for sure is the inability to accept a compliment at face value. And so what we do is we deflect with sarcasm, jokes. We downplay it, we say, Oh, the bar is really low, or it wasn't that big a deal. Or we, you know, I have a friend who's a writer, and he, he's written multiple number one bestsellers, he's sold millions of books. I mean, so he's a professional writer. But whenever someone compliments his writing, when they say, Oh, I read that I enjoyed that book or whatever, he's got this standard line of, oh, you and my mom must be my two years. And he just, you know, naturally is self deprecating. And when, as I was writing this book, we talked about this. And I said, you know, when, when? When you do that, have you ever thought about the fact that someone insults when someone compliments you? And you downplay that compliment? You're actually insulting that person? Interesting. What do you mean by that? You're, you're telling them that almost like you're a liar, you don't know what you're talking about? Your standards are really low. You You don't have credibility in this area, your opinion doesn't matter. You're I mean, that is less likely. That's all the stuff you're saying is, is, Hey, I appreciate your attempt to be nice to me, but you don't have any idea what you're talking about. So you come off as an arrogant prick not meaning to but it's just your survival protection mechanism. So it's like, yes, what a horrible negative feedback loop. And even in some ways, in some cases, we're we're trying to be humble. We think we're being humble by downplaying that compliment to say, Oh, no, no, no. And, and actually, we're being a jerk. We're insulting. Someone just handed you a gift. And you picked it up, and rather than unwrap it and say, Oh, thank you so much. You looked at it said, it's really not worth what you think it's worth. And you set it aside, while while that's like a big change in perception of, again, taking the spotlight off of me, how is this impacting just in everyday life impact on business, but I Wow, I never thought about that before. Is the person trying to compliment you? not accepting it is? Wow, okay. Yeah, yeah. And, as I'm told, I'm totally guilty of that. We, we, so many of us do it all the time. And, and, and so we've got to stop doing that to others. But we have to stop doing that to ourselves as well. Right? When when you accomplish something, when you do something that's worth celebrating? Let yourself be proud of that. It's hard for me and authentically. Yeah, yeah. But you need to let yourself enjoy that victory. And that's really, when you suppress the victories, and you don't allow yourself to celebrate and enjoy the great client you just landed or the project that went really well, or the proposal that was accepted right out of the gate, you know, when you don't allow yourself to accept those. And then you amplify the mistakes and the errors. And you're, you're doing the same thing to yourself, you're you're training your brain that your successes aren't worth much. And your failures and mistakes are really, really important. And valuable and impactful. You hit me on the head right there. Yeah. And that will continue to feed your imposter syndrome, because how do you how how in the world? Can you ever feel like you measure up if your successes are always minimized? And your failures are always amplified? Yeah. And it seems dangerous, because it's you're just chasing your tail? And at what point? Are you going to catch it? And how is that if you're not enjoying what you're creating good and bad? But definitely, if you're not enjoying the good, so what have you Is it just one of those things that you really just have to be aware and go I'm celebrating this, whatever that might look like taking myself out to dinner out, like talking about it with friends and really giving energy into that positive stuff? And kind of Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, it does require you just to be conscious of it. And again, you know, similar to what we talked about before, it feels a little bit, maybe mechanical and rote, to just force yourself to say I'm going to, I'm going to celebrate, I'm going to go do this, I'm going to, I'm going to enjoy this victory. I'm going to treat myself when something good happens when I accomplish something. But it's again, it's about building muscle memory, right? When you're learning to a sport or you're learning to play to swing Golf Club. It's not necessarily fun to go out there and just swing in practice and just try to you know, drive or when you're learning the mechanics of hitting a baseball bat or, or doing any kind of drills, but you're building the muscle memory that will allow you to have actually enjoy the sport when you go out and play it. So because it'll go well, it's another thing then of life of falling in love with the process in the process on these little things that compound that are uncomfortable in the beginning. But keep swinging, swinging, swinging, and eventually your handicap goes down. Right? Then you start scoring. And then you're happy about the scoring. Now, let me ask you this. So that's on my agency side. So this course that I'm building up to teach people my process, obviously, this has been imposter syndrome galore. But I knew like I just I had to do it. I've taken courses before. And it was just, they were always missing something. They were valuable, but not what I wanted to literally look this out for myself, but five years ago, but the entire mean every single module and recording everything I'm building, and it's just like, I look, and I'm comparing myself, going, Oh, well, this guy saying he's making $7 million a year and doing all this stuff. And it's like, well, I'm, I know what I'm building is valuable. But it's like, Whoa, okay, yeah, yeah. So what what you're doing when you compare yourself to another course creator, or another educator or another person in your industry is, you're, you're almost always comparing the reality of your own work to a polished filter version of their work. You're comparing the messy inside of your business to the marketing face the the polished outside of someone else's. So it's the same thing as like an Instagram filter. Yes, it is. It's very much like if someone you know, if a supermodel gets, you know, professionally photoshopped and all dolled up and looking amazing. And then you take a picture of yourself in the bathroom mirror, when you just got out of bed, and you compare and say, Well, I'm not as good looking as that person. Well, of course, you're not because you are looking at reality. And you're comparing it to something that's not reality. That, you know, no one looks like that when they get out of bed. And so, you know, don't compare yourself rolling out of bed to someone else walking out their front door, after they've had an hour to get ready in the morning. And that's, and that's what happens when you compare yourself to another person's business. Every business has a mess in the background, Every business has flaws and faults and cracks, Every business has had to overcome trials and challenges and has had failures at times. But but that's the landing page. They don't put those on Instagram, they put the success on Instagram, they put the success on the on social media and on the web. And, and so you that this is what I just call the comparison trap is when you're comparing yourself to someone else, it's almost never, and I mean, with very rare exception, because you never know someone else's complete story. And, and all the messy insides of their business and the things that they have to do. You also don't know. You know, someone, it may be true that someone's making millions and millions of dollars, but they may have sold their soul to get there. They may be, they may be doing things that would cross ethical boundaries for you, they may be doing things that would cross health boundaries for you, they have, they may have sacrificed their personal relationships to get there. I mean, there's all kinds of ways you can get to success. That may not be the way you want to get there. And so, there again, to use another analogy, you can't compare your path to another person's destination, you don't know what path they took to get there. And it may be a path that that you're not willing to take for very good reasons. Yeah. Because I know for a fact what I'm building out is something that I'm proud of, and something that I think has a ton of value. But again, it's that anxiety of the unknown and how are people going to respond and all these things? Yeah, but I know I'm building what I would have wanted. Five years ago that would have saved me a lot of pain and heartache and spend success up. It's just that nagging like you've never done this before. You don't know what you're talking about. Who are you? Right? Your agency is this you've done only done this. Some years ago, I was working with an executive coach myself, I've had multiple executive coaches throughout my career and he I was in a sort of a pivotal moment where I was looking at pivoting one of my businesses and going in a completely new direction. And it was scary. And I said I you know, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I'm the right guy to do this. I don't know what it's gonna take. I don't know if I'm qualified, etc. And he taught me the difference. It's between self esteem and self efficacy. Hmm. And so self esteem is largely emotional. It's how you feel about yourself. It's a, it's, it's, you know, it's wrapped up in confidence to some degree, but it's, it is largely a feeling. And it's often based on your very recent circumstances. And right now the context of what you're doing, right? But it's a feeling and feelings are incredibly fickle. Right? You're right, your emotions are your emotions are easily manipulated, and they are not a good way to make decisions or to judge the reality of a situation because how you feel is just too unstable and too unpredictable to rely on. self efficacy, on the other hand, is a is an honest look at what your capabilities are, and in particular, your track record and your history. And it's an assessment of based on everything that I've done in the past everything I've done up to this point. What do I know about what's possible and what I'm capable of? And here was the kicker, this was the thing he said to me, he said, Chris, it's not about whether you've done this thing before that you're about to attempt. It's about all the other things you've done in your career for the first time, hmm, it's about all the times because I'm an entrepreneur, like you, I've, I've done a lot of things that were experiments that were trials that were, you know, have created things that didn't exist, I've sold things that were still in the making. I've, you know, I've hired people not sure exactly what we're going to do and figured it out. And, you know, he said, Chris, you have a track record of learning on the fly of figuring it out along the way of deciding what you want to do and learning what it takes to get there on the path as you go. So just because you haven't done this thing before, doesn't mean that you don't have what it takes to be successful. Because what it takes to be successful is the ability to learn and figure it out and to strive through those trials. And those challenges. Yeah, and so that was an eye opener for me, it was like, Okay, I don't I don't have to base my confidence on that I've done this thing. 100 times until I can do it. 101. No, it's it's that I've done 100 things one time, and I can do this one, too. Yeah, that's how I do feel is like I'm taking 10 years of failures and trying this trying that different businesses, different angles, different approaches. And that's all I've learned by force and by necessity, and by choice, and then put something together where I felt like, oh, I've got something here, right. And so it's that in conflict of like, I'm really excited, I think this is really going to improve people's lives. But then that's that little voice, it's like, no, no. And, and what you don't realize is that learning that you just described, all that figuring out to you feels like a series of mishaps and mistakes and stumbling through and it's not to other people that's like black magic. That's amazing. That's, that's like that's a skill they wish they had, and that they're coming to you to teach them. How to figure your way through those things. And more even better than that, they're coming to you to teach them how to take the shortcuts that you figured out, because you took all the long roads and figured out the ones that don't work. And that's incredibly valuable information. So what what you think of and what it's easy for us to think of as we navigate as we explore as we figure out our way through the woods of, you know, the uncharted territory of whatever we're trying to do. We look back and see 100 mistakes. Other people look back and see 100 things you learned that they don't have to learn because they can just learn them from you instead of having to go through all those trials on their own. And that's incredibly valuable. Yeah, yeah. And that's really what I'm trying to do is make an impact like that to shortcut. That long. Yeah. Yeah. And then have people make it their own right and use it to get hopefully even higher than I've taken. But you've got to recognize the value of those things. All of that stuff you've accumulated. You know, if you really sit back and look and think about all the things that you've learned through that process, and that you you paid for those lessons, you learned, you earned those lessons right now, they're not, don't don't devalue those lessons because you you spent a lot in blood, sweat and tears and money. At to gain all of those lessons. And so recognize how valuable they are. And that's what people are coming to you for. Yeah. So john, some things that a lot of people either aren't willing or aren't capable of doing. And in do and in doing those things, you've now created some shortcuts for a lot of people that they are going to find really, really valuable, because they said, I never would have found my way through that on my own. Yeah, super valuable. And what I'm realizing that I've been procrastinating on is at the end of your book, the sheet to make connections of the failures and the successes. And yes, I've been putting that off, if I'm going to be completely honest. And it's like, that's exactly what I need to do is sit down with that, do you want to kind of walk me through how I should be? Yeah. So the the learning map is not a, it's not a simple exercise. It's, it's simple in its design, right? It's not quick and easy. It's not a 15 minute kind of exercise, it does take some time and take some commitment. And you may have to do it in stages, right? Like do pieces of it at a time. But essentially, you take a sheet of paper, three columns, in the left hand column, you're going to list failures, mistakes, you know, things that did not go the way you hoped they would. And, and and, john, when you do this, please be very, very honest, real and transparent. Because this is just for you. This is not, you don't ever have to show anybody else in this document. But the amount of learning you're going to draw from it is totally dependent on how honest you're willing to be to put down on that paper, all the stuff that just didn't go the way you don't let that voice take over and write, just let it let it tell you all the stuff that was you know, a mistake or whatever, that's the moment to just yeah, let let the negativity just dump out on paper. Yeah, but then you go to the right hand column, the other side, and you list all the successes that you've had. And here again, this one actually may be harder, it's gonna be much harder for me, and it may be harder to be honest, because you, you may feel ashamed to celebrate the little wins, the small things that have gone well, but the stuff you've learned the things that have put them all on there, every last one, I probably don't even register things as wins when they are, so it's gonna be a challenge for me to go through and go. Alright, that'll Yeah, that is a win. And then that's really starting to go, okay. And so if you need to, you can do some things to help with that, like, go through your entire client list, every client you've ever served, and think about the projects you did for them, the encounters you had, when were the meetings that you walked away with sort of a fist pump, or that they said, Thank you so much, that was amazing, we never would have got there on our own. Also, look at the people in your, your circle of influence your close professional network, and go individual by individual people, you've worked with people you have either maybe mentored or helped in some way or, you know, that you've learned alongside and, and, and kind of go person by person and think, what are all the good things that have come out of that relationship? Yeah. And so take a methodical approach, but try to list as many things as you can. And then the key to all this coming together is in the middle column, you're going to list all the stuff you've learned, and, and those learnings are going to come are going to come to you in two different ways. One, the learnings come from the failures, for sure, we learn a lot from failure, right? But then as you look at the successes, you can also ask yourself, what did I have to learn to make that happen? What was the key thing that I knew that if I hadn't known that, that success wouldn't have been possible? How did I contribute to that success connecting the dots to the columns? And well, that's the list. That's the list all the learnings. And then the last step is what you're talking about is connect the dots from failures to learnings. And from learning to success. And what this will help you do is it'll help you to visualize that many of your failures have actually led to your successes, that that the the the learning that comes from failure is the same learning that leads to success. And when you connect those dots, failure won't be so scary, okay. Failure is not failure. It's not failure as long as you learn something, right. And, and that when you make mistakes, you'll think oh, okay, that's a that's another one on the on the failure line. But let's immediately start to draw out of it, what do we learn, and then let's start to think about what successes are possible from that learning. And, and that's the last piece is when you you know, when you lay this out, you may say, Well, gosh, there are some failures I have that I don't have connected to a learning. Well, okay, there's an opportunity to learn something, go back and reassess that. What can I take away? What are what are some things I did learn and don't realize that I learned. So it's really making those failures as turning them into an asset for you turning them into an asset, right. And that's, that's one of the big things is we, we so often think of our failures and our mistakes as things we want to sweep under the rug and hide. But if learning comes from failure, if failure is a is a powerful learning tool, then when you suppress and hide and pretend all your failures don't exist, you're robbing yourself and the people around you have the valuable lessons that come from those failures. Wow, yeah. Because I didn't even think that this is something that could use to impact people's lives with like, Hey, here's what Yeah, almost advice. And like, again, another shortcut. So if again, taking the spotlight off of me? And, yes, and how can this affect others? How can this, how can this empower you to have an impact on other people? Yeah. And, and so taking that spotlight off of you, and recognizing that, when you suppress your failures, you're limiting what you can do for other people, in order to just try to manage your image and maintain the perception of I don't make mistakes. I don't, you know, you're you're protecting yourself, at others expense, really, at your own expense to somebody because you don't get the benefit of the learning that comes? Yeah, because I find, for me, it's I'm not too fearful of like, I don't mind people, like I'm human. It's one of my vices, like I make mistakes. The actually one of the rules in the course is like, yeah, mistakes, we're human. But for me, it's where I struggle is when I feel those uncomfortable feelings push up, right, instead of just leaning into it, yeah, being uncomfortable to extract something out of it, so that it's no longer uncomfortable. But, again, it's shifting the way you frame it that people are missing out on me not. Yeah, I'm not aware. But and that's another one of those muscle memory things, as you start to think that way more often. A, it becomes easier to think that way, the more you do it, the easier it becomes to think that way. But, but be when you when you really build the discipline of thinking, failure equals learning equals success, then when you do make a mistake, your brain will instantly go to what can I draw to this? And who can I help with it? And it'll just become second nature of like, okay, I screwed up, what can I get out of it, and you see, almost start to look forward to things that are inevitable for the rest of our lives. And again, it's changing your relationship with failure. So that seems to be the common theme throughout everything is really changing your relationship because we're human, it's going to be what it's going to be, what your need is to decide what it means to you and how you're going to react respond to it. Yeah, the the root of imposter syndrome to sort of tie this back to the beginning, though, I mean, the root is a fear of failure, and a fear of, especially failure in public. It's a fear that, you know, I'm going to do something so wrong, that everybody's going to realize that I don't have what it takes, and then it's all gonna come crumbling down around me. And my career is going to be over because I'm going to be exposed Sapir have this exposure. Yeah. And, and the, the irony of it is that the cure for imposter syndrome is being vulnerable, about your failures about your weaknesses, it's, it's the fear is that you're going to be exposed and the cure is to just go ahead and expose yourself, right? So you don't give anyone the power. You don't give anyone the power, including that negative voice in the back of your mind when that when that voice is saying, you're gonna fail, you're not up to it. And you don't feel fear failure anymore, than the voice has no power. So good. When the voice says people are gonna figure out that you don't know what you're doing. And you can say, well, that's fine, because I already told people that I don't know what I'm doing. I already told people that I'm learning on the fly. And I'm thinking I'm just being real with everyone and saying, This is me. This is the journey I'm on. Then all of a sudden, that voice has no ammunition. That voice can just nag and nag and nag all day and just say, Well, I don't care. Yeah, I'm doing it's like a bee with no stinger. It just buzzes around your head, but you know, it can't hurt you. So you just ignore it. Wow. Wow. That's good. This has been incredible. Huh? Good. I'm glad Yeah, just some big light bulbs going off of like, you know when when it's your own. stuff on it yourself, you just get so deep into it, especially with everything going on in the course in my agency, you just cut, it's hard to kind of come back up for air a little bit. And not in a crazy way, just like you just get into it. And then you're in that that cycle, that feedback loop in this quick conversation has been like, Okay, all right, normal. We're kind of going to this, but now it's time to do the little things that are different. Yes. And it's just like working out just like golf, just like anything that you're new at. You just have to do it. Yeah. And that, and that's a key thing is that, you know, I, all the time when people tell me that, you know, a conversation like this really had a big impact, and then made a big change. But I always tell them that that's half the change that needs to happen. The awareness is half the battle. Yeah, you know, once you're aware, then you can start to combat but the rest of the battle is fought in a million little decisions, there's not another big half that just one more hour would do it. And we would you would be there. It's the other half is all little things. It's when you have that moment, have I screwed up and you think instead of what are all the things that could go wrong, I think well, what are all the things that could go right? What am I learning from this? How am I going to take away? How is this this painful moment going to become a valuable piece of my story that I'm going to share for the rest of my life, it's going to benefit me, it's one moment of pain and benefit for the rest of my life, because I'm going to learn something from it. And it's, you know, it's it's the change in the mindset of I don't fear failure, and I don't fear exposure. In fact, I'm gonna lean into it so that I take away the power of that voice when it tries to talk to me. And it's just building that muscle memory. And when you do it over and over and over, it gets easier and easier and easier. Yeah, and that's actually right. Do the learning that actually not look at it in your book and go, Oh, that seems like a great exercise. But actually sit down. And do it, do it. Yeah. And see what comes out of it. What aha moments what the, there'll be at least one moment as you do that, that you connect the dots and go, Holy moly, I never, I never would have saw that. And you're not going to get that by just thinking about it. It's going to happen when you really lay it down and go through it. And that really becomes like a living, breathing document that's kind of just using Yeah, continue to you can continue to add to you can continue to update. And the great thing is one day you're going to be asked to, you know, tell your story, your entrepreneurial journey. Tell your and you're gonna think okay, I got to think of what are the things I want to talk about? Well, that learning map, that is your story. Yeah, that's, here's all the stuff that went wrong. Here's all the learnings that I have the valuable wisdom. And here's all the great stuff that came out of that, like, that's an hour long talk right there. I mean, so when you need to help somebody you can draw from that thing. You can pull stories and illustrations, like every line on that document becomes an opportunity to tell a story, which I imagine gives you a confidence boost, because now you've got a tool in your toolbox, but also you've got the assets and the stories to be able to tell. Yes. Yeah, the struggle, the pain, learning success and take them all the way through. But also it's like cathartic for yourself. It is and you start to see that pattern. You remember my coach said it's not that you've done this, it's that all these other things, you start to see failure, learning, success, failure, learning, success, failure, learning success. And then eventually you just start to go, Oh, well, I failed at something. There's a learning and a success coming, hurrah. I can be excited about that. Right. It just becomes a it becomes a reflex. And that really helps you to change your mindset and see failure differently. Amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Chris. As always, you're incredible. JOHN, you're welcome. I really appreciate it. You're very welcome. I enjoyed it, man.