I recently read an article in Inc. Magazine entitled “The Imposter Syndrome: Why Do So Many Successful Entrepreneurs Feel Like Fakes?” . As someone who has often felt “not good enough” at something (even if I am masterful at it) and wondered if I was a fake because I didn’t “” , the article caught my eye. So, why do so many successful folks, especially women feel consumed with self-doubt?

Some of the reasons cited by the article include:

• “I didn’t feel like I deserved it.”
• Success is due to some external factor like luck, timing, a fluke, or personality.
• Being successful with their business, but wondering, who would hire them if they chose to take a traditional job in an organization
• Feel ill-equipped to survive in the outside world
• Feel vulnerable because they don’t have as much formal education as their corporate counterparts

When it comes to the women in the mix, they have an added factor that fuels their feelings of self-doubt. When something goes wrong, men tend to blame things outside of themselves; however girls tend to blame themselves and internalize things. So, if a product goes bust, it is not because the product was flawed or the market just wasn’t biting. For a woman it translates into “I’m inadequate”.

What also struck me as interesting in the article is that many entrepreneurs channel these feelings of fear and insecurity into an unrelenting push to succeed. Somehow if they can keep their nose to the grindstone and work 100 hours a week, they can keep afloat. As a result of handling these negative feelings in this unproductive way, instead of ensuring success, they bring about inevitable collapse. Maybe the business doesn’t collapse but their personal life and health does instead. What we focus our thoughts on expands, so if we focus on our fear of failure, that’s what we get more of.

What’s a person to do?

Well, as someone who coaches business owners on not only making their business more successful but more importantly creating and living a thriving LIFE plan, I can assure you there are things you can do to keep the imposter gremlins at bay. Such as:

• Be mindful of what you make different events “mean”. Just like in the example above of how men versus women handle the same event, what you believe you create. Create empowering interpretations from life’s events, don’t wallow in the negative and most definitely don’t take it personally.
• Focus on the WHO of YOU not what is going on around you. Whatever business you own or job you hold will come and go; but you are stuck with YOURSELF for life. Investing in your own personal growth builds the character and life skills to not only succeed but FEEL successful and fulfilled
• Don’t compare yourself to others. Comparison only leads to distress especially when the way you think it is may not be the way it is at all. Ever compare yourself to a powerful, successful CEO who owns their own business? Well, that same CEO could’ve been profiled for this article.
• Get support. No one should have to plow through life and business challenges alone. Join a like-minded mastermind or networking group or hire a coach. The investment in time, money, and energy will yield results many times over.

If you’re looking for this kind of support so you can explore your self-doubt in a safe, confidential way and transform that into self-confidence and business results, surf on over to my website to learn more about how I can help.

Every October 11th the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered community recognizes National Coming Out Day; a day to celebrate, educate, inform, and stretch in terms of being honest with ourselves and with how we show up in the world. National Coming Out Day was born on Oct. 11, 1987, when half a million people participated in the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. A complete historic timeline of important dates along the journey can be found on the HRC website.

This year’s theme is “Talk About It” .
Every time we talk openly and honestly about our lives, we get another step closer to equality. Why? Because studies show that people who personally know someone who is LGBT is more likely to become one of our allies because it puts a face, a person, and a name on the cause. It’s much harder to hate or discriminate against a group when someone you know and care about is a member of that group.

That is the basis of another new website aimed at promoting the conversations of equality. I Am Your Neighbor is a new website that has rallied around the belief that “Its easy to dehumanize people you don’t know”. Their goal, and that of National Coming Out Day is to encourage us to reduce the number of people who don’t know someone who is gay or lesbian. While I must say this whole approach seems to be lost on the high profile politicians (think: Mary Cheney, father Dick, and buddy George W.), it is a sound approach because when we know and like people in our lives, we empathize with and support them. The distant “they” (people they don’t know) becomes “one of us” (people in our lives). The trickle down can be tremendous in the richness of our day to day lives as well as the bigger fight for equality.

The thing about coming out is that you’re never really finished. Everytime you meet someone new or end up in a new situation you have to make the “to come out or not to come out” choice. While no one needs to come out to every Tom, Dick, and Jane that they meet, for professional women or business owners this becomes an issue in every new business situation, especially when part of the responsibility of the position is being “sociable” at events with peers, vendors, suppliers, or co-workers. That is why it is so important for the tide to turn and the lines of communication to constantly open up between us and those we interact with.

Personally I’d never out someone who didn’t want to be, but I do believe the only way to live a truly authentic and fulfilling life is to be honest with yourself and with others. Unless your safety is at stake, my opinion is that it is better to come out than dance around the topic all the time. After all, how many of us ended up coming out after painfully agonizing over it only to realize - DUH, they already knew!

I have create a 10 step process for coming out with confidence that I will be unleashing in the upcoming weeks and months. Meanwhile….. I wish you all a happy National Coming Out Day and challenge YOU to find one new way to be more honest about who you are.

One of the top reasons why bright and talented women often end up disliking what they spend their day doing for work is because companies want robots, not people, and they manage in such a way as to create zombies. What happens is that otherwise intelligent, top performing women head off into the work world with dreams of making a difference and being wildly successful and instead after years of working their butt off wake up one morning with dull ache where their passions used to be. A dull ache of apathy or not quite knowing what happened to the zest, panache, and spring in their step.

Today I read a post by Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users that sums this phenomen up in pictures in a way I never could. I’d like a poster size of these images! They really rock. Hop on over to the article and take a deep look at the first two. Basically, why do companies hire bold, creative, smart, passionate, and independent people when what they really want are status quo, obedient robots? Here’s why, according to Kathy:

Why Robots Are the Best Employees

1) They don’t challenge the status quo

2) They don’t ask those uncomfortable questions

3) They’re 100% obedient

4) They don’t need “personal” days.

5)… because they don’t have a personal life

6) They never make the boss look bad (e.g. stupid, incompetent, clueless, etc.)

7) They dress and talk the way you want them to

They have no strongly-held opinions

9) They have no passion, so they have nothing to “fight” for

10) They are always willing to do whatever it takes (insane hours, etc.)

11) They are the ultimate team players

12) They don’t complain when you micromanage (tip: micromanaging is in fact one of the best ways to create a robot)

13) They don’t care what their workspace is like, and don’t complain if they don’t have the equipment they need

14) They’ll never threaten your job

15) They make perfect scapegoats

16) They get on well with zombies

She then goes on to create an awesome chart depicting the Zombie function. Basically it is what happens when an otherwise talented human is micromanaged to death. Hence, the word zombie. I mean, what talented person wants to be micromanaged? No one. And, my opinion on the micromanagers I have worked for is that they are so insecure and fearful of their own self and abilities that the only way they can feel secure is by tightening their grip and micromanaging. That’s an illusion of security if ever there was one. Micromanaging is like trying to control a cup of jello by tightening your fist around it. Go ahead, try it out…and let me know if you’ve sufficiently controlled that jello.

So, what can you do if you feel this dull ache and find yourself stuck in a world of robots and zombies? First, don’t despair - there is hope and your awareness of your dissatisfaction is the first step in creating a new situation that is fulfilling. Start with the following:

• Make a list of what is missing from your day to day life.
• Explore the question — what am I most passionate about? And, how have those passions gotten lost in the course of my day to day living? (Don’t worry about shoulds and don’t beat yourself up. Just write freely and openly over the course of several days.)

Once you get a sense of what is missing, you can start exploring ways to put these critical pieces back into your routine even if just in little ways at first. For instance, if you miss the freedom you once had (before you took a particular job perhaps) you can reserve one evening a week just for you to do whatever you choose and start experiencing a little freedom right now. What you’ll find is that as you start incorporating more of what really matters to you, even if only in 30 minute increments, you will start to awaken the person hidden behind the robot garb that you have unwittingly donned. As you start to wake up and reclaim some of this lost energy you can set about making even bigger changes that will put you on a path that excites you rather than drains you dry.

Not sure where to get started or overwhelmed by what you might discover? Contact me at paula@coaching4lesbians.com to learn more about how I work with people just like you to move beyond the daily grind.

Last night the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line opened and once again theater nuts can see the infamous musical in its new incarnation (it originally ran 1976-1990 and is like “THE” musical by which so many others are measured in terms of success and length of run). Once again, theatergoers can ask the timeless question “Who am I anyway? Am I my resume? That is a picture of a person I don’t know…”.

I always found this lyric particularly moving because it seems that as kids we act out the essence of who we really are, until someone tells us not to. You know, as a kid we want to eat the whole plate of cookies at the party until some adult informs us “Don’t Be Selfish”, so we morph into a person that views both eating all the cookies and taking time for ourselves in the same light — guilt — selfish — bad. And this goes on and on for some women until they wake up one day, look at the resume or their life and wonder — who the hell is that person in the mirror? I don’t think I know her.

How does this happen? Some of it happens from being told what we “should” do, so we do it even if our heart doesn’t agree. Sometimes it is because we stopped listening to what’s inside of us so we just do what everyone else does. Perhaps we don’t really know what we want (and hell, who REALLY does at 18 years old when they go to college) so we rationalize ourselves into courses of study and job interviews that look “safe” or “secure” despite the fact that they will crush our spirit. For some of us it gets even worse as we struggle with our sexuality, the dance of coming out (or not) and what that all means in terms of how others view us and what (we think) is possible for us.

As someone who graduated from college with a degree in something that doesn’t turn me on (accounting), I initially pursued corporate jobs that someone else advised me to pursue. Fortunately for me, many of them didn’t pan out because I wouldn’t have lasted 6 months as a road warrior, overtime innundated public accountant. By the time I was a few years out of college I had a job and a resume that had nothing to do with who I really am so I started to explore “what’s next”. With more years, life experiences, and wisdom under my belt I can now appreciate all that I’ve done as learning experiences and stepping stones that have served or will serve me in some way. But, it was not always that way and for some — living the fictional picture of a resume that doesn’t match who they really are can become a debilitating situation.

How about you? If you sit down, get quiet and look around at all areas of your life as well as your written resume/portfolio, what do you see? Do you see the real you? Does the image excite you about where you’ve been and where you’re headed? Or, do you look around and say “Oh crap, what the heck is THIS??” Maybe, perhaps you see something somewhere in between…like parts of your life are great, other parts are ok, and still other areas are not so inspiring.

Let me know what you think by posting a comment….

Lest you think I am living in some positive bubble in my world, let me share with you my latest experiences…

No matter how many years I work with a PC, the web, and the whole “e” world; No matter how savvy or knowledgeable I get; it is still plain hell to either 1) Get a new PC or 2) Rebuild my existing PC from scratch when it goes belly up. Now, as someone who consults on using web technology to power a small business, you’d think I’d be calm and cool regardless what technical snafu comes my way. Think again. When it comes to my PC and data (and heck, now it is even my hobbies — music, photos, etc.), I can only take so much before I go postal. OK, maybe not postal, but certainly not calm, serene, in the moment, and able to let go of what bugs me. So, you see…those of us who are coaches get to do the same work as our clients on a daily basis. There’s the thrill of being human…

While I am not yet 100% back in business, technology speaking, I am probably 80% there after several days and many hours of reformatting, installing, reinstalling, reconfiguring, and talking/chatting/e-mailing/holding with various support departments. All this and I KNOW what I’m doing. I have 10+ years in information technology related positions. How does the average person or small business owner manage? Perhaps ignorance is bliss, or maybe they just melt down entirely.

I knew I was in for a long project when on Friday night while I was stuck in the endless loop of Dell Computer’s automated phone system with the banal nasal-voiced woman recording saying “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you”, I started screaming at the top of my lungs into the speaker phone “YEEEEESSSSSS, WHAT PART OF YES DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?!?!?!”. But I digress. Apparently, it is not much better for others who have hit insane levels of frustration. As I get closer to getting my system working, now I am left with two main problems and several small annoyances. The first being my Mozy backup won’t restore and of course I can only talk with them by e-mail so it is slow going. But at least they are responding! Then, tonight I am faced with the big project of bringing my iPod and iTunes back to happy existence. For a slick piece of technology designed simply and elegantly, I have gained many a gray hair in my two years of iPod ownership. I LOVE my iPod, but I also live in fear of it and having to do anything at all different with iTunes and the iPod for the fear of disaster is so high. I’m not alone…. today as I looked on the support forum; two other very unhappy campers had posted with the following subject lines:

“IS ANYONE EVER GOING TO HELP ME!! or shall i just destroy my ipod? ”

“THIS IS RIDICULOUS APPLE!!!!! How do I download older versions of itunes?”

Goodness knows the technology insanity is not limited to Apple. This is just an example of the level of stress associated with living in the technology age. Clearly frustrations run high and the line between civilized and going postal is thin.

So this got me to wondering, what will I do differently next time around? What did I do right that I will continue to do? I share these with you in the hope that they help you out as well.

• You can never have too many redundant backups. While I haven’t yet lost any data (Mozy tech support, I am counting on YOU), I am damn thankful I made secondary, last minute DVD backups of personal and business files. In the future for planned changes I would do my restores to portable media so I had it handy during the rebuild/new PC process rather than go into this long cycle of download and prayers I am in now.
• Plan on it taking some time to get through the process and then double your estimates (at least). There is time to get organized, actually install things, spent on hold, working with support, and lastly the ever popular updates (like a million) that have to occur when you reinstall your operating system from the disk you got when you bought the PC. Installing update 1 of 56 … was not the screen I was yearning to see.
• Divide and conquer. There are things you absolutely “must have” to be operational and then there are the “nice to haves”. Start with the non-negotiable items: operating system, firewall, virus and spy ware protection, email, office products and build from there.
• Don’t kick the cat or dog and don’t scream at your loved ones. Do not throw heavy or breakable objects. I did fairly well on this one this time although the tension can grow when your partner is trying to be helpful and it isn’t helping. That’s a good time to say, “I appreciate your help, and perhaps that’ll work out later.” I also highly recommend a nerf ball for any pivotal moments when you just need to throw something at the wall. A subset of this rule is: Don’t scream at the tech support people (screaming at the insane automated voice recordings IS allowed). These employees didn’t cause the problem and even if they are useless and not helpful, your problem is not their fault. Call back and get someone else.
• Walk away. Another reason this is taking me so long is that I refused to have it consume my entire weekend. While it took a huge chunk, I found it necessary to get away from it all by keeping my other, very low-tech plans (time in my kayak, wine tasting, biking, etc.). I am always better able to solve sticky situations when I am refreshed and my head is clear.
• Keep the commitments you can; apologize and renegotiate the rest. Since my PC days are far from being “just pleasure” (there’s an oxymoron) anymore and they actually support a business, it is disruptive not only to me but to my clients. For the most part I am keeping commitments with the exception of needing to put an extension on the date I promised someone a proposal. The key is open and honest communication.

The bottom line is that technology is great, when it works. When it doesn’t, it is straight from the “Life is Hell” books. As we get more and more technology enabled, the stakes for our businesses and even for personal pursuits (think - digital album of all your treasured photos) get higher. The amount of stress and insanity that can stem from it is big, and a whole new way for our bodies and minds to engage in the “fight or flight” response. So, be prepared and protected for life’s technology woes and remember to keep on taking deep breaths and keeping perspective when in the muck of a technology crisis.