Overcome Imposter Syndrome

Well, this last episode is one that we all need to hear. There's no one out there that doesn't struggle a little bit with imposter syndrome. So excited that we had Jodi Mack, who's an author, CEO, former NBC and ABC news anchor, and distinguished Toastmaster who helps professionals become unshakable at work. She's produced and directed content and delivered keynote presentations for major brands Life Walmart, Pepsi Cola, and Discover Card, and is the author of Assured, How to Rise Above Imposter Syndrome and Others' Jealousy to the New Unshakable You. So here's Jody. Kelly, welcome everyone to the Power Up Your Life podcast brought to you by GoBundance Women. I'm Kelly Resendez.

And I'm Mandy McAllister.

And we are joined by a friend Jody Mandy here today. We're so excited to have you here, Jody.

So excited too. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Awesome. Kelly, share just a little bit in your words, your journey, and background. Absolutely. So first of all, again, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here because, your audience is exactly who I wrote Assured for. And, I did spend more than twenty years working from the newsroom to the boardroom, And along the way, I learned that success is not just about being talented as you guys know. It's about learning how to navigate that unspoken power dynamic that shows up when a person starts to rise or starts to become more successful. Things like jealousy or sometimes sabotaging and self doubt. And that's really what my work is all about, trying to help women become more assured, more confident when they get into that boardroom, that newsroom, that conference room.

Yeah. That's amazing. Well, give us just a little bit of your journey with that. Did you have an experience where as you were becoming more successful, you had some challenges along the way?

Several, in fact. So my journey really taught me not to become harder, but to, by becoming clearer and wiser and more certain, you have a better chance of succeeding. From having people stealing my ideas on a big product power launch that we were, having for a cybersecurity company that I worked for to having the data prompter stop in the middle of a newscast, a live newscast to millions of people. And, I learned so much from that. And, you know, at first, I thought maybe something was wrong with me when things started happening like that. And then I realized that so many other women, people, men too, they're walking through that same invisible obstacle course that I walked through, and that's why I wrote the book assured. Just to give people a way to recognize what's happening Mandy to stop internalizing it and to respond with confidence instead of of fear because that's what happens. And, you know, Kelly and Mandy, as you know, you can be prepared, you can be creative, you can be committed, but you still run into power plays, jealousy, and then, you know, self doubt can kinda creep in, get bringing us to that imposter center.

Oh, man. The this has been, a big piece of my work, Jody Mac, this getting over imposter syndrome. And I actually have on my whiteboard something I look at all day long that says create certainty because the more certain I am, I am the one out there creating certainty, and that's what gets me over that. So I'm curious for someone who's in the messy middle like me. Like, sometimes I am a boss when it comes to getting over imposter syndrome, and sometimes I wanna be in the fetal position. So I I know anything in growth isn't just a one and done type of a thing. Right? So when someone finds themselves, me, finds myself backsliding into imposter syndrome Women I I feel like I should be getting over things Your I've done the work to get over some things. What are some actionable tips to stop the backsliding into imposter syndrome?

So sometimes Your feel like an imposter. Right? Because maybe you're in a new environment Your there's some things that you haven't resourced yet that gives you that confidence, because you're still growing. And because you're maybe underqualified or whatever the case may be, you just don't have that confidence. Right? So you you get that imposter syndrome. So high achieving women often think confidence comes from perfection, which it doesn't. And I imagine you may have thought that as well, but confidence comes from practice. You gotta have practice. You have to have the preparation, and most importantly, you gotta have that self trust so you don't need to feel ready to be worthy to be in that room. Right? So some of the steps that you can take, because that was that was difficult for me, is let's say you're being undermined. Let's say that somebody is stealing your ID like they were Your me, when I was doing that big product launch. Instead of defending, you or explaining or getting emotional too quickly because that's what happens. You feel like you're being attacked Your you feel like somebody is embarrassing you. You have to ask yourself what's actually happening here? You have to take that Women, and this is the, you have to ask yourself, is this a misunderstanding, or is this a pattern, or is it actually a power play? You know, the what's interesting is there's a book called, the 48 rules of power. You might be familiar with it by Robert Green. It's a book that teaches others how to be powerful and manipulative in competitive work environments. And a lot of what I wrote my book against was there's power plays that are happening that are that people are actually reading and coming up with to sabotage. It's an actual thing. 15,000,000,000 copies were sold of this book. I didn't know what was happening, but when I read the book, I started realizing and recognizing some of those laws. And, I part of what you have to do when somebody is doing a power play on you Mandy you're feeling that imposter syndrome Your you're feeling that, self, doubt or not confident is you have to respond with calm clarity. For example, if somebody says something to you, you can slow them down, and here's a a step that they could take is I wanna make sure my contribution is clear. So let's return to the original idea and that decision point, and then you you see you don't have to attack them. You can just stay in a a state of control. And then but you have to be angered. Otherwise, you may start feeling that imposter syndrome. So there's certain steps that you can take, and I've outlined that in my book, those specific steps that you can take depending on what the situation is, whether it's a terrible boss Your people are collaborating with you or someone is sabotaging you or someone is, doing something that is causing that insecurity or that imposter syndrome.

Wow. That's so powerful. And it it sounds like just really taking a deep breath and leveraging self awareness of what's happening and not reacting like so many people do because we you know, one thing that we say a lot, one of my neuroscience coaches, Ellen Petrie Mandy, would say, don't explain or justify. Like, there's just no need to do that, and yet we want to because it is just, you know, that human journey. So, you know, talking about women in leadership, we know that the numbers are, you know, I believe they're pretty pathetic. And a lot of it is that there is a lot of competition and jealousy, and I think that people are in scarcity. And so they think they need to, you know, put themselves first. How do you suggest that women support one another so that we don't end up in that situation?

Well, let me first say that there there is an important difference between jealousy and then sabotage and envy. So jealousy is usually a feeling. Sabotage is a behavior. So jealousy, for example, is when someone feels threatened by maybe your success Your sabotages when someone, they act on it Your they try to make others question your credibility, let's say. I never want anybody to walk into the workplace feeling suspicious. That would be a horrible way to, go about your work day. I want them to walk in aware because jealousy and sabotage usually show up as a pattern, not these one offs. So let me give you an example. Sometimes it shows up when your ideas are brushed aside. And then a few minutes later, let's say you're sitting in a conference room, one of the other, maybe a supervisor decides that they're going to tell your idea in a more eloquent way. And a few minutes later, when that person is saying what you just said because they presented it better than you, all of a sudden everybody in the room thinks, wow, that's a brilliant idea. Mandy then they almost stole your idea from you. So that's a little bit that's a form of a subtle sabotage. Right? Or someone maybe compliments you in a private way. But in a way that they undercut you or they make you feel like you're being difficult just because you have standards. Because sometimes when we have standards, people there's boundaries that aren't set, and and so those standards can be crossed. That's why I always say don't focus on the Women. You have to look for the pattern, and that and then you gotta watch because self sabotage can play into that too.

I I think that's that's so important to to learn to recognize exactly what's happening, and that's the sometimes the line is real gray around it. So I you know, like you said, it all it all comes to clarity with some practice. You've seen a lot of people battle imposter syndrome and grow into leadership. What would you say are the most common mistakes that our listeners could look out for and how to circumvent those?

Off the top of my head, I would say the most common mistakes are not setting boundaries. It's so important that you set boundaries because if you don't, people can walk over you Mandy people can use the laws of power over you. And and and if you're not prepared for it, which is one of the most common things that happen, you feel ambushed. Your it's a confrontation thing. Somebody says something to you in the workplace or even in your personal Life, and you're stunned, and you don't know how to react, and then your brain shuts off because your adrenaline goes off. I think self sabotage is the part that's really important here. Even if someone else starts the damage, we sometimes accidentally finish the job for them. Let me give you another words. Someone dismisses Up, and and then we start questioning ourselves. Or someone criticizes Up, and suddenly, we're overexplaining, or we're apologizing, or someone makes us feel like we're too much. We're over the top, so we've become a little smaller, maybe a little quieter. We wanna be easier to manage. And I get that because I've done that. And, I've looked for approval from people who were never gonna give it to me. And I wondered, maybe I need to tone it down. Maybe I need to be less direct, or maybe I need to make everybody feel comfortable, which I did a lot when I was a news anchor. It was intimidating for others to just even meet me sometimes, and I just had to downplay the whole thing. But that's where we have to wake up because sometimes that sabotage that's outside of us, it is real. Somebody is purposely trying to do something that's, untoward. And that happens, and and then we start believing it. So self sabotage is where you wanna just stop yourself, and that's, my work. It's not just about spotting what other people are doing. It's about asking quest it's about asking yourself, where am I? Am I participating in my own diminishment? Am I shrinking? When I should be standing up for myself. So you have to ask yourself that question, and you you gotta be making sure that the undermining is real

and then address it. Yeah. So how would you address it? So let's just say Your an example, I'm in the workplace. I'm a leader Your maybe it's my own company, and I've noticed that somebody else is doing this to me. And I know that I need to have a conversation with them. Like, how would you recommend addressing it in a healthy and collaborative way so that, you know, you can make some decisions for yourself. Sometimes the decision becomes, I'm no longer gonna have this person in my life or in my business or work for them.

Yes. I I would recommend instead of defending, that's the first wrong step. Or explaining or getting emotionally too quick, you have to ask yourself what's actually happening here. That's the first step. Is this a misunderstanding? Is it a pattern, or is it a power play? And then you have to respond with calm clarity. For example, you can say something Life, I wanna make sure my contribution is clear Your let's return to the original idea or that that decision point. You see, you don't have to attack. Attack is the wrong way to go about it. Instead, you you you have to become anchored. Otherwise, you're gonna start having feelings of that imposter syndrome that we talked about.

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That's why you owe it to yourself to check out goabundancewomen.com. We talk we talk a lot on this podcast about, you know, rituals or recipes. When when it comes to moving through imposter syndrome, you've talked about finding this calm clarity. Are there any other rituals? If I find myself leaning into imposter syndrome and I wanna get out of it, what are some daily rituals or in the moment rituals that I could do that might move me through it easier?

Well, it's always good to be grounded before you go into any type of presentation, any type of environment where you might be in the spotlight, let's say, in your workplace. Maybe you're making a presentation in the conference room. You have to watch the challenges. Challenges were a hard one for me. My challenges taught me that not everybody who smiles at you is supporting you, so that's the first thing you have to remember. Mandy and not everyone who questions you is against you. Right? So I had to stop looking for approval from people who actually benefited when I doubted myself. And that was a big shift for me because I wasn't prepared for that. And oh, and I learn also learned that the best response is not anger, which I talked about a little bit earlier, or revenge, which is a natural feeling that you have when somebody hurts you or somebody, causes you to feel uncomfortable. Right? So instead, it's about rising above it with wisdom and a little grace and a lot of humor. Mandy, of course, you have to have a strategy. And once you once you pause and look at the possible meaning of what's happening with this person and why they might be affronting you, you notice the pattern Mandy then you have to choose your response. So let's say it's a misunderstanding. You have a conversation. If it's insecurity, you you designate it as being insecurity or competition. You don't shrink or chase approval. It's a pattern. You have to stop treating it like it's an accident and start responding it responding to it with your own strategy. And I think that would really help women use their set their boundaries, use their presence, their state of mind to have a more powerful voice. And that's what I would suggest that some of your listeners would wanna do is look at you can't just step into a room being confident. You have to step into any kind of environment, whether it's work or personal. Everything that you do, you have to know what you're talking about. If you really know what you're talking about and you own it, this is what I say to a lot of people when, in Toastmasters Women I I happen to go back once in a while Your even in a keynote where I'm talking to a group of women who Your who wanna be keynotes. And I say, you have to own your material. You have to know what you're talking about. You have to be in that frame of mind and that headspace that says, I know my message. I can tell you my message, and you're gonna understand my message. So you break it down as easily as possible for them to absorb so they can get the tidbits of information that they need to help empower them and for to help them become assured and confident. And that's what the book is all about, is becoming assured. How to rise above others' jealousy Mandy the imposter syndrome. Yeah. That's amazing. So you came out of an industry

that is very rooted in physical appearance. Right? Like, many of us are in industries where we have to just be successful with the strategies or or whatnot, but you were also in one where people are, like, looking at you. I could imagine that there were, you know, the there were also people that said negative things about, the physical aspect of things. And and watching some of the movies that are out there on the on the newsrooms and other things, holy moly. You guys went through a lot. How did you manage that? Like, how did you deal with the fact that you had a lot of people that were fans, but you probably also had some criticism out there about your physical Up?

Okay. I'll share something with you that's, it was amusing. I'll I'll share, an interesting quick story, and then I'll tell you a little bit some of something else that happened while I was on the air. So there was a group of women that, I can't remember the name of the group right off the top of my head. This is many decades ago. And it was a group of women who were positively blonde Power something group. And they wrote to my news director, and they said, we don't like the way Jody is wearing her hair. At the time, I had bangs, and I had hair, and it kinda came in like this. And, apparently, you know, I had a few strands that were sticking up that you can sometimes see in certain shots. And so they wrote a letter to the news director, Mike, and said she needs to change her hair, cut her hair. And my director said, we need to make sure you spray your hair down. And I'm like, I don't wanna be helmet head. I wanna, you know, I wanna be normal. And and so I had that happen, which I just thought was very interesting that somebody cared that much about my hairdo. And then, I also had on the opposite side because that's that's a nothing. But on the opposite side was, some of the men from the correctional facility were writing me love letters. Now understand, I was delivering the morning news. So when they got out of bed and they went to the mess hall or wherever they go, they had on our station, and I was one of the first people that they would see when they would wake up in the morning so people felt intimately close to me. So they would write letters, and that was a little bit unsettling because if they get out of prison, are they gonna go look for me? I don't know. Oh my goodness. Yeah. It's a little bit unnerving, when you're in the public eye. And, I feel for the celebrities out there because there was one time when I was walking through a restaurant, and I had become sort of well known here in Las Vegas. Mandy, people would say, hey, Jody, come over here. Or people walk up to me, grab my arm as I'm walking to my table Mandy say, oh, you need to come over and meet so and so. And you don't know if you know them. You don't wanna offend them. You don't know you don't know them. And after a while, you start to become jaded and say, hey. Don't just grab me. You don't know me. But people feel like they do. Like Your do when you when you see a celebrity Mandy you're an amateur or you're whatever. And so it's interesting. So the physical aspect of it is interesting in the, physical way that people can assert themselves and grab onto you. That's interesting too.

Right. Well, they think they know you, and they don't really know you. And, man, am I glad I didn't open myself up to haters when I had this commitment to bangs until way too long. I'm I'm with you, girl. I feel it. You know, you've mentioned your book a couple of times. Can you just maybe tell us kinda a little more about what that book is?

Absolutely. So, Assured is a book that basically gives first of all, it helps you to navigate toxic people. And and and, the chapter of my, the first chapter of my next book, which is called Astounded, and I won't get into that right now, but it talks about it's the personal platform of dealing with people around you that might be causing you grief. But and and assured, it you you it teaches you to navigate through the toxic people, and then it helps you build confidence by using practical solutions. And, we also are doing, starting cohorts where we have women that join, and then we all talk about their specific problem. And then we, help come up with a an answer. So it helps them with their problems. And, yeah, that's been a lot of fun. We started that as well. But you have to you have to find your voice when you're in business, when you're when you're presenting yourself. Whatever industry you're in, you have to believe your voice really belongs in the room before you open your mouth, and you have to be clear. You have to be concise. You have to have the courage to speak up. People often kind of soften their language because they they don't necessarily want to sound too aggressive or too direct, but there's a difference. So I would suggest to your listeners to, people who are tuning in that you start deleting phrases Life, I'm sorry, but, or this may be a bad idea, or I just think whatever x y z fill in the blank. Your words really teach people how to hear you, and the book teaches you it gives you the words. It gives you the steps. The what you can do when you find yourself in a situation or in in toxic workplaces.

I think, you know, you have said so many things that just resonated deeply with me. A couple of notes that I took were con confidence comes from practice. You know, I actually actually once was coached to make a, an album of pictures of this is me in my phone doing things I was really proud of so that I can look back at the stuff that I know that I can pull off when I feel, you know, uncertain moving forward. So I I also really Life that you said, rise above with wisdom and grace. Oh, man. If nothing if that is the woman I hope to be, thank you for that gift, Jody. Kelly, what did, Jody leave us with that you really liked?

Yeah. I think first thing is awareness that there are a lot of toxic people out in the world that have strategies that really are around sabotaging you, manipulating you, and using that awareness not to get triggered, but to really just address the the situation super direct. So so much goodness and and so much, Your know, so many actionable steps we can take away as well. So, Jody, what is the best way that we can support you? Is there a resource connection, a way that our listeners can find you Up you potentially become a part of this cohort?

Absolutely. I appreciate that. My book is being published through SP Books, and, it's launching next month officially through Waterside Publishing. The advanced author's copy has already been released, and it's available to anybody who wants to listen to the book, Mandy listen, an audio book or an ebook, and it's free right now. And it's gonna remain that way until the book launch, and then we're gonna close that down. It was part of helping the promotion. So I would love for anybody who who wants to listen to it or read it, can just go to the website. It's assuredbook.com. And, feel free to just go under the chapters in the chapter gallery and download whatever they want Mandy listen to whatever they want. And hope hopefully, they'll get some concrete advice of how to, navigate around, difficult situations. And I just wanna leave this message with everybody that you can't let criticism or somebody else's insecurity or even their jealousy convince you to become a smaller version of yourself. Don't do that. You can be kind and still be powerful Your humble and still be visible. Others can challenge you, but you can still be assured.

Oh, I absolutely love that. Well, Jody, thank you so much for coming on the Power Up your life podcast and definitely check out the assuredbook.com. What a generous offer that you've got to be able to support women getting to the next level. So Hey. Thank you guys all. If you love the podcast, share it. Leave us a review. Mandy, Jody, when you get the next book out, you're gonna have to come back and share more on that one as well.

I would love to. And remember, you just gotta pay it forward. Right? Be positive. Pay it forward. Good things come around. Love it. 100%. I love you guys. Thank you. Next episode. You guys have been wonderful. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining us today on the Power Up Your Life podcast.

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