Dealing with Imposter Syndrome in the Beauty Industry

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to The Modern Hairstylist podcast. We're gonna be talking about a disgusting, trashy, garbage feeling today, and that's called imposter syndrome. Yes, ma'am.

Imposter syndrome is something that every single one of us deals with. I know I have to deal with this. I know Caitlin Granger has to deal with this. I know Beyonce has to deal with this.

I know every bitch on this planet has to deal with this, okay? Unless you're, like, a narcissist, then I feel like you probably don't need to deal with this. But regardless, this is something that affects us all and especially as business owners, especially as people who are trying to build brands and personal brands. And we are working with the public, and we have public perception on us, right?

This is something that can really hold you back from achieving your goals and stepping into your true purpose of making an impact in your community and in your own life as well too. And so what we're gonna try to do in this episode is attack it head-on and only just, uh, share your, our own experiences with it, and hopefully give you some encouragement and a kick in the ass to work through it, feel the fear, do it anyway, and pop the F off because you are destined for greatness, my friend. If you are listening to this right now, this is your motherfucking sign. So, if you're ready to get into it, let's go.

Let me guess, you are a hustling, bustling hairstylist behind the chair working so hard to build a beautiful career for yourself, one that gives you time, freedom, and energy to spend with yourself, your family, and your friends. But you feel like you're always working in your business, even when you're not behind the chair. My name's Hunter Donia, and I help you automate your systems and implement really beautiful strategies so you can grow your business without the overwhelm, and this is The Modern Hairstylist podcast. Hey, Caitlin, what's the tea?

How are you? I'm good, friend. Having all of the technical difficulties today, but I'm just not gonna touch any buttons, and it's gonna be fine. Everything's, everything's good.

No. Kosher. Wonderful. No touching anything.

At the time of recording this, um, w- there was just, like, this massive glitch with Instagram where everybody's ca- account was getting deleted, like, out of nowhere, and Caitlin logged into my Instagram every now and then to get some stuff done. And I'm, I Slacked Caitlin in the morning, I said, "We're not touching my Instagram. We are not logging in and out of my Instagram. We are hands-off of the Instagram.

Please, no touchy-touchy." And I feel like technology, sometimes you just have to, like, throw the hands up. Throw the hands up, let it work its own kinks out, and then come back to it. So, I feel you, Caitlin.

Thank you so much for dealing with the tech tribulations with us today. Now, why are you here? Why do you have to be here taking on these tribulations of your technology? Like, please explain this circumstance to the people today.

My name's Caitlin. I am also a hairstylist. I currently live in England. I'm stepped away from working behind the chair when I moved out here for a multitude of reasons, and I have been working for Hunter since moving out here.

And yeah, I help keep him on track during the podcast, and we have some fun conversations, and occasionally my microphone decides to, um, be all sorts of crazy. Thank you so much for being here, Caitlin. We appreciate you. Caitlin, do you deal with imposter syndrome?

I can honestly say I am actively dealing with imposter syndrome. It is a struggle for sure. It's really fucking hard. I deal with imposter syndrome all the time, especially when you're, like, in a space where you're trying to influence and help other people.

Like, it's really, it really hits you. Like, you really doubt yourself, dude. Like, you doubt your own ability. You doubt your own, like, legitimacy.

It almost feels like you are, you just don't believe in yourself. Like, that's, like, what it comes down to, is, like, you not believing in yourself, I feel like. And it's really difficult to, like, work through that and just, like, show up through that regardless, but I think it's important. I mean, I think that if, for anybody who's listening to this, like, I believe that, especially in our industry, every single one of us makes a massive impact in the world, like, as hairstylists.

And I think that it's such a disservice to yourself and others to play it small because of your own tricks that your brain is playing on you when there's so many people out there who you can touch and change their lives if you got through your own uncomfortability around it, you know? And I think for me, it comes down to, am I gonna, like, sit here, and I'm, am I just going to, like, just be nervous about it and just not show up at all, or am I gonna show the fuck up regardless of how I feel about it? And if people hate it, then that'll validate that, yeah, I shouldn't have showed up. If nobody shows up for me, if nobody listens to me, like, et cetera, et cetera, that's gonna validate the situation, right?

But if I show up and I have at least one person who I can help or who resonates with what I'm doing, right, then it's worth it for me at the end of the day. And then it validates what I have going on, and then it just further proves that I'm on the right track, and I am supposed to be in the seat that I'm sitting in and taking the actions that I am, right? And you're never gonna know unless you just fucking go ahead and jump off the cliff and do the damn thing regardless of how you feel about yourself. So, I think that's gonna be probably like the overarching theme of this pod- podcast episode, and so you can just stop listening now 'cause I just wrapped it up in a, with a bow.

So yeah, that's fine. But anyways, so let's, let's, let's define imposter syndrome before we get into it. Imposter syndrome, also known as imposter phenomenon or imposterism, is a psychological occurrence in which an individual doubts their skills, talent, or accomplishments, and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud. And I feel like being exposed as a fraud, like, comes down to not just being exposed as a fraud from other people, but also just, like, yourself, right?

Like, feeling, like, that deathly awful feeling and fear of failing and not wanting to ever face that shame of failing, right? Um, I think it's, like, all an avoidance or, um, a way of our bodies and brains protecting ourselves from possible shame 'cause, like, shame is, like, the worst fucking feeling that you could ever have, right?... or at least one of them. And that's what imposter syndrome does, it keeps us in our comfort zones, it keeps us in our bubble, it keeps us really nice and, like, just safe and comfortable and cool with what's going on now.

But if we want bigger things for ourselves, like if we want to tap into the potential that I know that you have listening to this, we just have to fucking work through this. This is just a feeling that comes up and that we just have to face and we have to work through. If you've listened to this podcast before, when... Or just me in general, like, whenever you hear me talk about mindset , I'm, I never am gonna bullshit you and say, like, "Oh my God, yeah, like, this is just gonna go away, like, you're gonna be fine."

Like, that's not the fucking case. Like, the case is, like, you're going to have emotions. You are a human being. Like, there's just no way around it.

Your brain is physically designed to give you these feelings, like the hormones that rush through your body and all of those things, they are literally designed to give you these feelings to keep you safe because of evolution and survival of the fittest and all the things. But of... Obviously, they don't serve us anymore. And if you can just, like, remember that , if you can just remember that, like, your feelings are okay and they're really natural and normal and, like, you're supposed to be feeling like this, and you can just let it happen and you can have all the weird thoughts come through and you can get to the other side and do the damn thing anyway, I truly believe that things just get better and better and better and better for you at the end of the day.

And you're always learning and you're always growing, and the imposter syndrome does get better, um, but there's always gonna be a new version of it when you're stepping into a new version of yourself. Like, when you are shedding off, like, the old version of you in order to level up into your next step of whatever your purpose is or whatever that next level is, it... You have to just work through a lot of uncomfortability and sometimes a lot of fear, and then see what happens on the other side. And like I said earlier, like, you're never gonna know unless you do it, right?

You're never gonna know if you don't do it. And even if you fail on the other side of things, like even if you do end up being the, quote-unquote, "imposter" or feel like that, right, like a- when you actually do it, there is no loss in that. There is no loss in that. There is only knowledge to gain, there is only, like, up from there, like, I'm a...

Once you can start, like, celebrating your failures or start to be really comfortable with, like, seeing things, like, going the opposite direction of where you wanted them to go and then learning from them and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and really challenging yourself based upon the knowledge that you learn from it, that is when you can really bring shit to the next level for yourself. I'm a full, full prime example of that and a believer in that, and I see it in people's businesses all the fucking time And so this is something that we all deal with, and I feel like if you're feeling this right now, if there's, like, some big scary step that you wanna take, let's say you're just, like, scared of showing up on social media or establishing yourself as the expert of your specialty. Like, I hear that a lot, like, people say, like, "Oh, but who am I to be going on my social media and talking about how great I am?" It's like, bitch, nobody's gonna know how fucking great you are if you don't talk about it.

Nobody's gonna want to come spend your... Spend their coin with you if you don't show up and talk about it. It's like even if you don't feel like that, at least just, like, pretend for a second so that way you can make some money, and that way somebody can come in and you can prove to yourself that you are the fucking badass that you're going to market yourself to be, because otherwise nobody's gonna be showing up, nobody's gonna be trusting you, and you're not gonna be able to achieve the things that you deserve to be achieving after all of the work, the hard fucking work that you have put in up until this point, all of the education that you've taken, all the experience that you have. If you don't fucking show up because of your fear that you're going to be exposed as a fraud or because you're nervous about what other people are gonna think about you, you are doing a massive disservice to yourself, those people, your family, your friends, everybody around you.

So I know it's scary, I know it's hard, but, like, girl, get it together, Miss Mama, and show the fuck up. What's your tea, Caelynn So as somebody that is actively, like, battling this on a on a day-to-day basis, something... I just wanna share a couple things that help me to kind of, like, get through it, because for me, a lot of the time, imposter syndrome leads me to burnout. Like, I'll get myself so worked up that I'm just, like, completely burnt the fuck out.

So something that I actually have on my vision board, I put it on my vision board earlier this year in January, is the quote from Steve Harvey saying that you have to get comfortable being uncomfortable if you ever wanna be successful. And, like, that's been, like, my mantra this year is, like, the discomfort, it... I have to embrace the discomfort. Like, even though I'm telling myself these stories of like, "Well, why would people wanna learn this from me?"

Or, like, "Why, why am I the expert in this?" Like, everything that Hunter just said basically, like, I have to feel those feelings and be okay with the discomfort because that is going to push me forward, and that's just something that has really helped me this year. But also, I wanna ask you a question. If you are actively feeling those really high anxiety feelings right now is, what is the worst thing that could happen to you?

Because a lot of us, like, myself included, I am a very high anxiety person, so, like, my immediate thing is like, "Oh, my, my hus- my husband's gonna leave me, I'm gonna die." Like, the, like, worst-case scenario things is what I come up with in my brain. But, like, you're not gonna die. Like, y- your family isn't gonna leave you, like, you are still gonna be okay at the end of the day.

And reminding yourself of that is like, What is the worst thing that could happen? I think is so, so important. I love that. Ask yourself that question, 100% yes.

What I did one time in, like, a business mastermind exercise situation was not only did we ask ourselves, "Okay, what's the worst things that could happen?" And we actually did what's the worst things that could happen, like, we wrote them all down.Then, not only did we write that down, but then we also wrote, "Okay, what's the plan if it does happen?" What's the plan?

What are you going to do? And then you realize, like, when you write down... Okay, so like, let's say, like, "I'm gonna go and open up my own suite." Okay, what if no clients come and s- or what if my com- my clientele doesn't follow me over, right?

Then, like, what's the plan? Like, then, okay, what is the plan? And so that way, you're going into it with a plan, and you're also able to r- see on a piece of paper how smart you are as a human being. Like, you are a smart, brilliant human being who will do what you need to do to get to the other side of whatever comes your way, whether you believe that or not.

And when you ask yourself that question that Caitlin just posed to you, and then you, on the end of it, also show, show yourself, like, "Oh, I know what to do if this happens," right? Then that is a beautiful fucking thing. And I think maybe if there are things where you- you're like, "Oh, I don't know what I would do in that situation," then maybe you aren't ready to, like, fully step into th- that. And maybe you do need to get some more education.

But there's more oftentimes than not then, where you know exactly what you would need to do if something fucking shitty happened, you know? You're a smart human being who's c- fully capable of, like, being able to take on whatever is on the other side of what you're scared to do right now, or showing the fuck up on social media. And again, like, what's the worst thing that could happen? It really depends on what we're talking about here.

You post something on social, it gets zero likes. What's the plan? This would be my plan. Are you ready?

My plan would be, I'm going to see why this post didn't do as well, and I'm going to test doing things in a different way. I'm going to hypothesize, "Okay, this post didn't do well. It didn't get any likes. Why do I think it didn't get any likes?"

I'm gonna come up with a couple theories, and then I'm gonna create more content to test out and change things around and see if this will hit better. Okay, great, now I'm not gonna be so scared about failing on social media because I have a plan, an analytical plan that makes sense, where I'm giving myself permission to fail, right? It goes back to, like, celebrating your failures, like, knowing that you have to fail to be able to actually grow and be successful. And then n- now you have this entire plan, and now you're like b- now, hopefully, it makes your, your action a little bit easier, right?

Hopefully, it makes the action a little bit easier. But again, the feelings are always gonna be there no matter what. But Caitlin, I love what you had to say. I think it's just really important to remind yourself that everyone, to a certain degree, is gonna feel what you're feeling right now.

Like, you're- it's not like... It's not an uncommon thing to feel. And just really leaning into giving yourself a little bit of grace when you do feel these feelings is so important, because it is such a high anxiety kind of feeling. We're just giving you permission to feel the feelings but keep going and keep being the badass stylist that you are.

Yeah, and think back to, like, the last, like, scary jump that you may have made. If you're listening to this and, like, you've jumped into, like, booth rental, if you jumped into, like, being a suite owner, like, or whatever it may be, right? Like, think about the last scary jump that you made in your life w- and, you know, think about the ones where you were successful on the other side. And think back to, like...

Or maybe even when you weren't, right? M- when you weren't successful on the other side. Think back to, how would your life be different if you didn't make that big, scary jump? What wouldn't you have learned if you didn't make that big, scary jump?

What wouldn't you have today if you didn't make that big, scary jump? And think about how you're not going to learn or you're not going to gain if you don't make this next big, scary jump, or if you don't just show the fuck up for yourself and the people who need you to show up for them. Think about what would happen if you didn't fucking do this shit, right? That's my other T.

That's my last word of advice. So Caitlin, thank you so much for sharing space with me, spilling the tea with me. I appreciate you today. My friend, listening to this, thank you so much for tuning in to the Modern Hairstylist podcast.

We're here to support you, we're here to s- love on you, and, uh, we are here every week with a new episode to spill all the tea to you about how you can grow your business as a hairstylist. And if you enjoy listening to this podcast, I would really appreciate it if you left a five-star testimonial wherever you're listening to this. Helps us reach more hairstylists just like you and revolutionize this industry, and we will catch you in the next episode. So, peace out, girl scout.

Bye-bye.

End of transcript. © 2022 Hunter Donia LLC.