Overcoming Imposter Syndrome | Kris Kelso | The Kelso Group | Profits on Purpose

Episode Description

In this episode, Nate Littlewood interviews Kris Kelso, a keynote speaker and author, about the pervasive issue of imposter syndrome among high achievers, particularly entrepreneurs. They discuss the nature of self-doubt, the impact of comparison, and the importance of community and vulnerability in overcoming these challenges. Kris shares insights on how to measure personal progress, cope with self-doubt, and the cultural differences in acknowledging imposter syndrome. The conversation emphasizes practical strategies for entrepreneurs to combat self-doubt and foster a supportive community.

Key Takeaways

• Imposter syndrome is a common experience among high achievers.

• Self-doubt manifests differently for everyone, often tailored to personal insecurities.

• Vulnerability in community settings can help combat feelings of imposter syndrome.

• Comparison to others can lead to false narratives about one's own success.

• Measuring personal progress against oneself is more beneficial than comparing to others.

• Talking about feelings of self-doubt can diminish their power.

• Cultural attitudes can influence the willingness to discuss imposter syndrome.

• Community support is crucial for overcoming self-doubt.

• Practical experience is necessary to build confidence and mastery.

• Imposter syndrome is a universal issue that transcends cultural boundaries.

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Listen to the full episode to discover how Kris' experiences can inspire and guide you on your entrepreneurial journey. Don't forget to subscribe for more insightful conversations!

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Transcript

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00:00 Introduction to Imposter Syndrome
02:00 Understanding the Imposter Voice
05:49 The Entrepreneurial Experience and Self-Doubt
07:56 The Comparison Trap in the Age of Social Media
13:30 Shifting Focus: Comparing Yourself to Yesterday
17:31 Navigating Imposter Syndrome: A Continuous Journey
20:20 Building Confidence Through Familiarity
25:03 Reframing Success Metrics
27:38 The Importance of Experience in Mastery
30:04 The Power of Community
32:58 Vulnerability in Community Dynamics
36:08 Navigating Financial Vulnerability
38:42 Testing Community Vulnerability
42:34 Cultural Perspectives on Imposter Syndrome
48:10 Global Insights on Self-Doubt
50:47 Practical Strategies for Overcoming Self-Doubt

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Nate (00:06)
Welcome to the Profits on Purpose podcast where we normally explore the journeys of purpose-driven founders and the financial strategies that have helped them survive. Guys, I'm your host. My name is Nate Littlewood and today's guest is someone a little bit different. Most of you would know that most of the guests on here are usually founders of CPG and e-commerce brands and they're deep in the trenches of scaling their physical product businesses.

Today's guest is not that he is not scaling a DTC brand or managing any inventory at all. So you might be asking what the heck is he doing here? And why did I make an exception? Guys, today's guest is a gentleman by the name of Kris Kelso, who is a keynote speaker, an executive coach and the author of a book called Overcoming the Impostor.

This is a book that has helped thousands of high achieving professionals rethink the way that they relate to self doubt. And folks, I have a confession to make. I am one of those people that Kris has helped. I actually had a coach recommend his book to me last year while I was dealing with a particularly troublesome phase of imposter syndrome.

And Kris's book, helped me navigate through that phase and get unstuck. He and I randomly struck up a conversation a couple of months ago over LinkedIn. And that's essentially how this conversation today has come about. So Kris has worked with entrepreneurs, executives and creatives across numerous industries. He's spoken at events all around the world as well. And he's on a mission here to help leaders reframe imposter syndrome, not as a weakness, but as a signal of growth.

Kris, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here.

Kris Kelso (02:07)
Thank you, Nate. I'm so glad to be here. I'm looking forward to this conversation.

Nate (02:11)
Absolutely. Well, Kris, you've reframed imposter syndrome as the imposter, a voice that shows up for high performers. Can you walk us through what that voice actually sounds like and how it might be sabotaging people who from the outside might look like they're thriving and everything's going fine? Yeah.

Kris Kelso (02:35)
There's so many of us that have that narrative in our head, that little voice that wants to try to convince us that either our success isn't real or the people that admire us and respect us don't really know the full story or it tells us that we don't know what we're doing, we're at risk of embarrassing ourselves or making some huge mistake and it's often trying to hold us back. It's trying to keep us playing it safe.

And I, as I, as I learned about imposter syndrome, because I wrestled with this as an entrepreneur for almost two decades now and, have had my own bouts of self doubt and, that voice in my head telling me that, man, you're, you're just one mistake away from being exposed as the fraud that you are because you've just gotten lucky all this time.

And as I started to study this phenomenon and this kind of psychological battle that goes on our heads, I gave that voice a name and I call it the imposter. Not just because it's trying to convince me that I'm an imposter, which it sometimes is. It's trying to tell me that I'm a fraud and I don't really know what I'm doing. I just know how to sound like I know what I'm doing. But it really, I gave it that name to remind myself that that voice isn't real. That there's nobody there. That it's just a mind trick. And also to remind myself that that voice

will masquerade as wisdom and prudence and sometimes even as humility. But it's not those things. It's self doubt. It's holding me back if I listen to it, if I give in to those fears that it's praying on.

Nate (04:20)
Wow, so it sounds like the imposter actually does quite a good job of convincing us that it's real and it should be listened to, is that right?

Kris Kelso (04:31)
Yeah, mean, the imposter sounds different for different people. It's funny, I've had a lot of people as they've read my book or heard one of my talks, they come tell me about their own voice of self-doubt. I one time had someone say, my imposter is a litigating attorney. And so everybody's voice of self-doubt shows up in a unique way just for them. And that's part of what makes it so powerful is

the voice inside your head will say different things to you than the voice in my head is saying to me. And it'll craft a message of doubt that's very unique and very specific because the voice in your head knows all your insecurities. It knows all of your perceived weaknesses. It knows all the times that in your life when you really didn't know what you were doing and maybe you were faking it a little bit and it'll try to capitalize on all those things that, that nobody outside of your head could ever do.

Nate (05:32)
Yeah, so interesting. So I guess as an entrepreneur or founder, mean, there's so many times where we kind of have to put on this show and

pretend to the rest of the world that we've got our you know what together, everything's fine, know, could be talking to investors or employees or maybe, you know, retail partners. You know, is it even possible to avoid the imposter when this is essentially what your job and so much of, you know, what you're required to do for your profession is just figure it out?

Kris Kelso (06:07)
Yeah, you know, I'm always hesitant to say it's impossible or that to say that a hundred percent of people experience this because the data doesn't quite hold that up, but it is very prevalent among high achievers. mean, studies say 70 to 80 percent of the population and even higher percentages among high achievers experience self-doubt and some form of imposter syndrome at some point during their career. And I think you

talking about entrepreneurs, you you hit on one of the reasons why it is so prevalent is entrepreneurs are almost always in sales mode. They're either pitching their business idea or their product idea to potential customers or to potential investors if they're trying to raise money. They are pitching potential employees and team members who they want to join them. You know, they're just vision casting all the time.

And they know that the vision that they're casting and the product that they're proclaiming, that there are some things in there that they don't really fully know yet. That there are some assumptions and even some guesses and that there are some flaws and cracks that they're still trying to work out because that's part of the entrepreneurial journey, right? We create something from nothing. We build things and we unleash them on the world and we have to figure it out along the way.

And so that combination of sort of really being in sales mode and trying to present the very best version of yourself while also learning on the fly and figuring it out as you go and always kind of being just a little bit in over your head, that is a recipe for a lot of self doubt.

Nate (07:50)
Yeah, interesting. yeah, entrepreneurs are always, you know, testing new boundaries, doing things that oftentimes they haven't done before. So it makes sense that we're naturally putting ourselves into situations and environments where we're going to be encountering this more than, you know, the average person compared to someone who's doing, you know, the same thing day in day out. It's like, okay, I've done this a thousand times before. You know, if you had a standardized job like that, I guess it would be a lot less prevalent.

I want to ask you about the comparison trap. You know, in a world of social media and pressure on how we should be performing and looking and you know, it's so easy to kind of look around and benchmark ourselves to our competitors, our peers and so forth. Can you talk a little bit about the role of comparisons and you know, benchmarking ourselves to others and how that plays into all of this?

Kris Kelso (08:49)
Yeah, it's a really tricky proposition to compare yourself to others because on one hand, it is important to learn from other people, to observe what others are doing and to look at yourself and be reflective and evaluate how can I be better? yet if you try to value yourself or rank yourself or compare your journey against someone else,

It's almost always a false comparison because the truth is that you don't know somebody else's full story. You only see the parts of it that many times that they want you to see, especially on social media. Social media is such a highly filtered and curated version of somebody's story. And I'm not trying to call people out or saying that people are intentionally deceptive. It's just sort of the reality of it is

You only see in here what they want you to see in here. And so when you're comparing yourself to someone else, you're almost always comparing the reality of your life to a very polished and filtered version of someone else's life. And it's just not real. And that can create all kinds of problems because when you see others, you know, that seem to be just crushing it, they seem to be doing great. And, and again, going back to entrepreneurs, this is where that always being in sales mode,

compounds itself because you see other entrepreneurs in sales mode and they look like they're killing it. They look like everything is awesome. And you know that your own story has a lot of struggle and a lot of challenges and setbacks. And so it's easy to feel like everyone else is moving a lot faster than I am. Everyone else is doing much better than I am, but it's because

the comparison trap. And I call it a trap because it really is a trap to try to rank yourself against someone else when you don't know the full detail of someone else's story.

Nate (10:50)
Totally. Totally. I've actually got an interesting example of this that I'd love to run by. I'm putting you a bit on the spot here, so apologies for that. As I think you know, I used to be an e-commerce founder and a few years back I was deep in the weeds of running my brand and I would do a lot of the things that you just described. I would look around at my competitors, was following them all on Instagram and

They had it way more figured out than we did. Like they had much bigger social media accounts. They were growing huge engagement. I was like, man, why can't I do that? That's so annoying. And I felt really bad. Like, cause I didn't feel like I was doing a good enough job to keep up with these folks. But here's where the story gets interesting. So at around the same time, there was a period of a year or two where almost all of my competitors did an equity crowdfunding campaign.

I'm not sure if you've heard of these, but there's platforms like StartEngine and Wefunder and so forth. Anyway, one of the requirements for raising on these platforms is that you have to publish two years of your financial statements. So you get two years of profit and loss and two years of balance sheet. Now, me being the finance nerd I am, I dove into all of these reports, looked at their financial statements, and these guys who I'd been kind of idolizing up until this point,

I saw what was really going on in their numbers and I was like, oh my God, like, I'm glad I'm not them anymore. And it actually made me feel so much better about myself when I realized that these people or brands rather that I had been, you know, idolizing up until this point, their reality was quite different, you know, behind the scenes.

Kris Kelso (12:39)
Yeah, yeah, that is exactly the kind of experience that I've had a couple of different times and even in different scenarios with, you know, getting to know a little bit about someone's personal life and realizing that while they're

business is successful, their personal life is a wreck because they've made so many trade-offs and sacrifices and I don't want to get to that place. so I've had several experiences like that where you get a peek behind the scene and you realize, man, this is not all what it seems.

And all of this beating myself up, all of this guilt or shame that I've been feeling, all of this being down on myself for not, being as far along as them has been for nothing. It's been a bunch of wasted effort and energy. It's been a bunch of just unnecessary emotional baggage.

And so that is when I really came to this idea of the comparison trap. And I said, we can learn from one another, certainly. And we should look at what competitors are doing and see what's working in the market. But the moment you start stacking yourself up against someone else, you're almost 100 % of the time setting yourself up against a false comparison and it's not fair to you and it's not helpful to you because you're not really looking at the truth. You don't know the truth.

Nate (14:01)
So if this is indeed a trap and we shouldn't be comparing ourselves to our competitors, who should we be comparing ourselves to?

Kris Kelso (14:11)
Mm-hmm. This is a great question. And I thought about this for a while and I said, you know what? The only person that I need to be better than is me yesterday.

Nate (14:23)
Mmm, yep.

Kris Kelso (14:25)
I'm on a unique journey as an entrepreneur, as a father, as a husband, as a, as all of the different roles and things that I am. I'm on a unique journey. That's a little bit different from anybody else. There's, may be some that are similar, but none are exactly the same. And so I need to be thinking about where am I now and where do I want to be and what kind of progress am I making towards my goals, towards my purpose, towards my passions, towards the things that are important to me.

And as long as I'm better than I was yesterday, as long as I'm making progress forward, then nobody else's journey really matters. They don't factor into the equation of whether or not I'm successful. And that has really become my definition of success is am I living out my purpose, am I making progress, am I growing, am I learning, am I stretching, am I doing new things, and am I fulfilling my passions and enjoying the things that I'm involved in.

That's the definition of success for me and it doesn't involve anyone else.

Nate (15:26)
Yeah, that makes that really, really resonates with me. So as I, as I think, you know, I now work with early stage founders in the, in the e-comm and CPG space and yeah.

One of the things that, one of the conversations I find myself having very often is around the financial improvement and performance of the business. And I've got this kind of example I go through, which I call the 5 % situation, right? Let's say we find three different ways to improve the financial performance of your business by 5%, increase net profits by 5%. One of them is to do with getting better at marketing and media buying and creative ad strategy.

The next method is you could improve profits 5 % by focusing on supply chain or engineering of your product. And then the final strategy could be about refinancing the business and looking into debt or equity or something or other. And what I say to founders is, listen, you only have a very, very small talent pool to pull from. You've got a small team, you're good at a small number of things. Like you don't have an Amazon size talent bench to pull from here.

So what we need to do is we need to figure out what of which of these opportunities or projects are best aligned with your unique talents and interests. Don't worry about what the other guys are doing just because they're growing their business by pursuing, you know, this particular marketing strategy. If you don't have the competencies and skills to do that, you're probably not going to be, you know, successful if you try to mimic, you know, their, their approach, but

If we can define a strategy that's unique to you and that you and only you can excel at and execute really, really well, then you're now in a competitive pool of one. No one else is going to be able to pull that off the way you can. So a big part of what I do when I'm working with my founders is try to understand what are their unique strengths and what are the parts of the business that they can really, really excel at.

And I say, I want to put the balls in front of you that you can kick into the goal, right? It's no use me putting a bowling ball in front of you, asking you to kick it and you break your toe. That's not going to help anyone. you know, we need to find the right opportunities for each and every person. So just wanted to throw that in there as a little anecdote, but I guess going back to what you were saying about, you know, comparing yourself to yesterday and gradual improvement, sounds like

if we were successful at doing that and we could convince ourselves that every day that we're getting a little bit better, does that mean that we can eventually, I don't know, cure the imposter or imposter syndrome? Like, does it go away or is this something that we're going to be dealing with for a long time or perhaps our whole lives?

Kris Kelso (18:25)
Yeah, you know, like many things, the answer is yes and no. It's a little bit situational. So one of the things I realized as I was studying imposter syndrome, again, I started digging into this originally for myself, right? I was solving for me and then solving for some of my friends and colleagues and clients. And I realized that one of the ways that you cure imposter syndrome

is to avoid it, to stay away from anything that threatens your confidence, to stick to what you're really good at, to do the same thing over and over again. And you kind of mentioned at the beginning of our conversation that there are people who don't wrestle with self-doubt because they just sort of do the same thing day in and day out and they get it on lock and they are satisfied with putting it on repeat.

And eventually you master what you're doing every day and you just keep doing it. And that's one way to approach life. But I discovered that I and people like me, people that are explorers and who like to push the boundary and who like to grow and try things new, the entrepreneurial minded people, creators, they're just not satisfied with that. And so they're not comfortable with mastering one thing and doing that for the rest of their life.

And so what I discovered is in some areas of your life, you can develop a level of confidence and mastery where to where the imposter doesn't really have much strength in your mind. The imposter can't really doesn't have a lot of ammunition to throw at you to try to convince you that you're just faking it or you're still figuring it out or you don't know what you're doing.

But as long as you're continually trying something new, as long as you're trying new things and you're getting outside your comfort zone, which people like me are always doing, I'm always learning something new. I'm always adding something to my portfolio of work or life or activities. If I'm not learning, I'm not enjoying myself. And so that continual learning means I'm always in some area outside my comfort zone, in over my head, et cetera. And so that's one of the reasons that my book is titled Overcoming the Impostor.

present tense continuous, ongoing activity, because it's not a one-time event. It's not a battle that you fight once and you win it and then you're done. It's an ongoing practice and really it's a set of habits, a set of disciplines that help you to battle self-doubt every time it pops up, which again, for someone like me, is frequent, because I'm always getting myself into new situations and trying things new and getting outside of that comfort zone.

Nate (21:17)
Interesting, interesting.

I'd to run something by here. As I think about what you were just saying in terms of testing comfort zones and you know, it's part of the DNA of what what entrepreneurs do. So as I mentioned before, this was something that I was struggling with big time last year, and going to open up a little bit here and share what was going on. So I was in the early stages of building what is now future ready CFO, right? My CFO consulting business.

Kris Kelso (21:32)
Yeah.

Nate (21:49)
And I had come into this as someone who'd spent nearly a decade on Wall Street. like, yeah, I was confident in the finance things. Like I knew numbers and financials as well as anyone else. Yeah. And I'd spent six or seven years as a, you know, moderately, mediocrely successful econ founder, right? I did okay at it, but I'm not going to BS you here, Kris. Like I didn't exactly hit it out of the park.

So anyway, I never actually been a CFO before in my life. All I'd basically done is Venn diagrammed this and said, okay, there's finance, there's being a founder, let me overlap them. I don't know, maybe I can help find us as a CFO. You know, I, I'd never been a CFO before in my entire life. And here I was suddenly trying to sell CFO services to, you know, people that were candidly more successful than I'd ever been.

as an entrepreneur. And I'm then, then, you know, turning around, trying to coach and advise them. It was about this time that I read your book. And I'm not sure if it was because of your book or not. But one of the things that I did, and I'd love to get your thoughts on this kind of as a strategy is I think I'd made the mistake of basically copying the template or the scope of work that all the other CFOs were using.

And, you know, I'll be frank, like, I'd never been a CFO with a big e-commerce company before. And I felt like a little bit out of my depth. But the thing that really helped me was actually kind of retreating a little back, a little bit back from saying, Hey, I'm a hardcore, pure CFO and identifying what was really unique and individual about me. And I was like, yes, I understand the numbers and I understand them just as well as anyone else. But you know what? I'm also a former founder and I know what it's like to be in the thick of it.

And I've since, I guess, repositioned myself when I'm talking to clients as more of a, I don't know, like a co-founder on demand. So yes, we can get into the nitty gritty weeds of the numbers if you want, but like, you also need someone who actually knows what it's like to be in your shoes and can help you make the tough day to day decisions. Now, I guess the reason I'm mentioning all this is because I feel like I kind of retreated a little bit from...

testing the bounds of what was unfamiliar to me. I came back to something that I was more familiar with, came back to a place that was more comfortable to me. And I kind of use that, I think, to recharge my self-confidence and, you know, boost myself up. And now what I do is I kind of go on campaign. So I come back to my core. I know I can excel here. I know I can do this thing and I can do it really well now have a sprint and then I'll spend a week or two doing something that's unfamiliar where I don't have as much confidence, but then I can come back to this thing that I know that I'm good at. What are your thoughts on that as a strategy or approach to dealing with this?

Kris Kelso (24:59)
Yeah, it's an interesting way of looking at your situation. And I think there is some wisdom in sort of building a base of confidence, something you understand and you feel really competent, and then building on top of that some experiments, some trials, some things you're going to add, a skill set you're going to develop. But you're not 100 % operating in the new and the unknown.

60, 70% in a very familiar and confident space, and then you're adding, I'm gonna try something here and I'm gonna see what I learned. You know, one of the things that, mantras that I've developed about trying new things is that failure is only truly failure if I learn nothing. And so as long as I'm learning, even if something doesn't work out the way I wanted it to,

I'm gaining ground. making progress. It may not be exactly the progress that I thought I was going to get because it go the way that I hoped it would go, but I got something out of it. And so what I hear you saying is I'm not going to put all of my eggs in that fail, succeed or learn basket where those are the, those are the two possible outcomes. And if I learn that may be great, but it might not exactly, you know, line my wallet or pay the bills, but I'm going to, I'm going to build a base.

where I'm confident and I know I can be effective and then I'm to add on top of that some of these experiments where some of them are going to pay off and I'm going to do great things that maybe I wasn't even sure I could do and that's awesome and others are going to be a learning experience that I'm going to have to do some trial and error and I'm going to have to take a step back and reflect and evaluate and try again or even reevaluate whether it's worth trying again.

Nate (26:47)
Yeah, totally. Totally. Actually, this is, this was a mindset shift that I, I, I picked up from you was about reframing the metrics of success. So I, I had, I'd observed myself, observed myself falling into a trap a little while ago. I was trying this new, you know, marketing technique strategy thing where basically hosting webinars, right? About the one hour workshop webinar about some, you know, finance related topic.

And the first couple of times I did this, I'd had, well, let me take a step back. I'd hoped that I'd have a full house and there'd be 20, 30, 40 people there. But the first time I did it, I'd had like 10 people sign up. And when I launched the first webinar, there was one person who logged on. A little while later, I had two people logged on. It was absolutely terrifying.

You know, like I'd gone into this thinking, Hey, you know, this is going to be this great, big event. I'm to get all these people and you know, maybe there'll be some business opportunities come out of it. And I realized I was completely overwhelming myself and thinking about the wrong metrics for success. And when I reframed it and thought, this is not going to, you know, make me millions of dollars. There's probably not going to be a whole lot of people here. Really. All I'm trying to do here is learn.

Kris Kelso (28:14)
Yeah.

Nate (28:14)
And I want to make mistakes because every embarrassing mistake I have is going to teach me a valuable lesson. And you know what? I've done a few of these webinars and they're getting better and better. And there's actually starting to be a few more people showing up and you know, I'm enjoying it more and I'm feeling so much more relaxed about it. And that all came from, you know, this insight, which I picked up from you, which is just reframing the metrics of success. It's super, super powerful.

Kris Kelso (28:42)
Yeah, there's something, there's some relationship. It's not a one-to-one relationship, but there is some relationship between imposter syndrome and perfectionism. And in particular, I've wrestled with some perfectionism at times. And for a lot of my life, I didn't want to do anything unless I felt like I could do it with excellence. And that alone held me back.

Like that is one of those things that that voice in my head, that imposter would prey on and say, you're not going to be great at this, so you better not even try it. And what I had to learn and figure out is that sometimes you have to do things poorly in order to get good at them. Sometimes you have to do something. There's only so much you can learn from books and courses and teachers and coaches. And sometimes you just have to do it and you have to do it poorly in order to get better at it.

And so, for instance, I do some coach training. I'm on faculty at a coaching school. I train executive coaches that are getting certified with the International Coach Federation. And one of the sayings that I use all the time is that great coaching comes from experience, and experience comes from not so great coaching. And so I tell my coaches that you have to do it in order to get better at it. You can't just listen to me talk about it. You can't even listen to me do it.

and think you're gonna be great right out of the gate, you have to go do it and do it even poorly in order to build the experience that makes you great at it. And so I remind people that if you were gonna go play a sport, if you were gonna go take up the sport of baseball, you wouldn't want your first baseball game to be in the World Series. And if you were gonna take up a football, you wouldn't want your first football game to be the Super Bowl or,

so you would want to have some practice and you would want to start on a smaller stage where the stakes are lower and you would want to work out some of the kinks and figure it out and then slowly earn your way to those big stages. And that's what you've got to think about. Even your webinar example, you probably made some mistakes on that first webinar. You look back on it and think, I wish I had done that differently. Well, guess what? You did it with three people in the room. So it wasn't a big deal.

Right? If you'd had 50 people show up to that first one, it might have been really embarrassing. It might have been a little even more detrimental to you than you liked. You'd look back on it and go, man, I wish I had tried that with a smaller audience. Those small beginnings should not be looked down upon. That's part of the process. And in some cases, it's a really important part of the process of mastery and becoming great at something.

Nate (31:27)
Yeah, I love that. Love that. So true. So true. Hmm. Let's change gears a little bit here. I wanted to ask you about the role of community. I'm going to have some follow up questions on this because I've actually launched a small community recently and I've...

It's been a big learning experience for me in terms of how we manage it and how to guide the conversations that we have in here. I know you have some thoughts on this topic. So tell me about community and how that can either help or hinder the situation here.

Kris Kelso (32:06)
Yeah, I'm a big believer in the power and the value of community. I'm a relationship builder. I'm connected to a lot of people. in a lot of groups that I interact with and those relationships are really, really helpful, but they can also be hurtful. know, we go back to the example of entrepreneurs and there's lots of entrepreneurial communities and conferences and events and networking groups and

if you go into a community of entrepreneurs where everybody is in sales mode, as we talked about, everybody's got their game face on, everybody's presenting the very best version of themselves, then that community can actually work against you. Because for many of the reasons we've already discussed, the comparison trap, you're there feeling like I'm the only one who doesn't measure up, I'm the only one who doesn't belong. Because there's a lack of...

authenticity there. There's a lack of vulnerability. But if you get into a community where there is vulnerability, where people are willing to say, hey, here's what I'm struggling with. Here's what I've mastered. And here's where I'm struggling. Here's the things I'm doing well. And here's what's not going so well. When you're in that kind of community, it's really, powerful and effective. And so I've come to realize that as important as community is, vulnerability is the key that makes community work for you or if you don't have it, it works against you.

And so community without vulnerability is gonna feed your imposter. It's gonna make that voice louder and stronger in your mind. But community with vulnerability will starve it. It'll weaken your self-doubt. It'll take away because you get to see that, man, everybody else is having...

similar struggles or at least having their own version of these struggles as I am and we're all on a learning journey together and so I don't have to feel like I'm the only one who doesn't fit or doesn't measure up.

Nate (34:10)
So interesting, so interesting. I think you've just helped me realize why this community is working the way it is. Let me, let me explain to you what's going on. Part of my mission with future ready is, you know, making finance, financial education and support more accessible. And a big part of that is lowering the price of accessing it. So one of the things I've been experimenting with is basically group format learning. So I brought together a group of founders and said, Hey, you know, this is finance theory. This is kind of the, some of the basics that you need to understand.

But then what we do, which as far as I know, is pretty unique in this space is everyone has opted into sharing their financial data with me. So we're not just having a conversation about, you know, where, cost of goods sold works. And we're not just having a conversation about, you know, customer acquisition costs. I've actually got everyone's data and I put it into a graph.

So, everyone's performance on terms of, cogs as a percentage of sales or the advertising cost as a percentage of sales. It's right there on the screen. I think what I have done reflecting on what you just said is I have basically completely removed anyone's ability to pretend that there's something that they're not like, the data is there.

It shows who is vulnerable. It shows who's performing well and who's weak. You know, no one's performing well on every single chart. There'll be a couple of areas where you're very strong and a couple of areas where you're very weak. And so what we do in this group is I present the data to everyone. And then I basically go around the room and ask everyone to kind of reflect on their numbers and say, okay, know, Kris, you're at one end of this chart and Sally, you're at the other end. How did you guys get there? Does that make sense?

Does it reconcile with what you understand about your own business and each other's businesses? I guess just kind of thinking out loud here, mean, maybe part of the reason that this is working is because I've just come, I'm basically forcing vulnerability onto these. I don't have an option other than to be vulnerable.

Kris Kelso (36:16)
Thanks.

You have forced the removal of the masks that people will sometimes wear by default and without even thinking about it or being intentional about it that we hide behind that anonymity. you've also, what you've done is removed the ability for the imposter to tell someone, everyone else here is crushing it and you're not.

Nate (36:44)
Yeah.

Kris Kelso (36:44)
You don't belong here. You don't belong in this group because you've got this weakness and you and nobody else is struggling the way you are. You've removed the ability for the imposter to tell. And I've been in rooms, Nate, where every single person in the room felt like they didn't belong. I've been in rooms where when we took a poll, I did a speech for a large major university and I spoke to all their faculty and staff and it was about eight or nine hundred people. We took an anonymous poll and ninety seven percent of them said they experienced imposter syndrome and felt in some way that they didn't belong or they didn't they weren't as good as you know everyone else around them. So when there's that ambiguity, there's not that vulnerability, it's really easy for everybody to feel out of place.

But you've created an environment where you're requiring the breaking down of those walls. And that will also be a filtering mechanism because people who don't want to get authentic and don't want to be real won't join your group. And those are the people that would be hurtful, would be harmful to the rest of the group anyway. it's really helpful to have that requirement and make that a part of the solution that serves your members.

Nate (38:06)
Yeah, yeah, no, it's, you hit the nail on the head. There's absolutely people who I've explained this concept to and I don't think they're ready for it, right? Yeah.

And I think this relationship with finances and numbers can be particularly problematic, particularly for purpose led founders, because what happens with purpose led founders is, you know, they've got this narrative that they're telling their family and friends, they're changing the world, they're doing all these wonderful things, got this fantastic product, building this great business. But then there's often times when the numbers are telling a completely different story.

Yeah.

Kind of facing up to the finances and the numbers can be quite confronting. And I believe it can cause what's known as cognitive dissonance, which is that, you you can't look at the numbers, which kind of suck and also be telling this story to everyone that, my God, my business is amazing and everything's going great. Like one of those things, you know, can't, can't be true.

And I have certainly had conversations with founders who I just don't think they're ready to face up to the reality of their numbers. And I suspect they've probably been scared away by this whole concept.

Kris Kelso (39:24)
Yeah, and they may fear that they're going to be the only one that doesn't have great numbers, which of course is not true. But without knowing, it's natural to feel that way. And that's part of the battle that I've recognized and wanted to push back against. so I've kind of come to a place where I don't want to be a part of a community where vulnerability is not the norm, where vulnerability is not celebrated, and especially if it's punished or

you know, people that that take risks and open up are, are, are, are hurt for it. I don't want to be part of that cause it's not productive and it's not helpful.

Nate (40:03)
Yeah, so true, so true.

You're very, very selective then about the communities or groups that you choose to be a part in or a part of. I understand you may have employed some fairly creative tactics in the past in terms of, you know, quickly figuring out whether not a group is something that you want to be part of. Could you maybe tell us a little bit more about that? Like, how can you, how can you quickly figure out whether this is going to be a vulnerable group and it is whether it is worth your time to hang out and invest in it.

Kris Kelso (40:39)
Yeah, so once I figured out that vulnerability is an important ingredient in what makes a community powerful, I started to use vulnerability as a test. And so what I would do is when I'm introduced to a new group or I'm considering joining a new organization or I'm meeting some people for the first time, I will intentionally be a little bit vulnerable to see how people react.

Maybe I'll acknowledge a weakness or an area that I'm trying to grow or learn or, you know, I'll just, I'll try to cut against the typical grain of putting your game face on and showing up as your best and, you know, trying to impress everyone. And the way people react tells me a little bit about those individuals and the culture of the group as a whole. If people sort of start to back away and say, I,

I don't have that problem or I don't know what you're talking about well and they get a little bit standoffish or even nervous, then I know there's a lot of faking it going on and people are not comfortable with that level of vulnerability. But if I open up and I share something and people lean in and say, my goodness, I'm so glad you said that because I've struggled with that myself. Or maybe they say, you know what, I battled that same thing and here's what I learned and let me introduce you to someone or give you some resources, you know, they reward vulnerability, then I know that this is a group that values that and where it's gonna be safe.

Now, this is not without risk, okay? I wanna acknowledge that up front, that if you're gonna open yourself up, that you may be, you know, some people will punish vulnerability. Some people will use your vulnerability against you. You make yourself vulnerable and you might get hurt. But I have just come to really believe that the,

The lessons I learned, the things I learned about those people outweighs any potential negative downsides of me being vulnerable because I know sooner rather than later that this is not a safe space. And so if I do get harmed in some way for opening up, then that's okay. It's just accelerated my learning. It's going back to that. tried something and I didn't succeed. It wasn't the group for me, but I learned from it and I got out quickly so that I don't have to invest anything more into that organization or community and I won't waste any of my time and energy there.

Nate (43:09)
That's so clever, so clever. Kris, let me ask you a question. I presume you recall the LinkedIn post over which you and I connected. I'll refresh your memory, but

Kris Kelso (43:24)
Yeah, it's been a little bit now since we did that. Remind me.

Nate (43:26)
Months.

I'm as you probably noticed, Australian and these particular posts that we'd connected over was actually a post from an Australian founder. And this founder had claimed that she didn't, you know, struggle with or, know, the males in her circle. Yes, that's right. Encountering or admitting to imposter syndrome and my my basic you know, response was, hey BS, like go read this guy's That's how you and I got connected.

Anyway, my question is, I'm curious about cultural differences. You know, in, the Australian culture, there's kind of this attitude of, yeah, she'll be right, mate, just keep on going. Don't worry about it. And you know, there's, there's often a reluctance, particularly in Australian males, I think to ignore this or deny this or, know,

I mean, it's kind of, I'm just thinking about the people that I grew up around. It's like almost a confession of weakness to admit that you're thinking this or you're dealing with it. I'm curious whether you are aware of any differences across nationalities or cultures. Like, is this more or less prevalent in certain parts of the world?

Kris Kelso (44:46)
Yeah, so I've learned a lot in this area since the book was published. And I'll confess that when I published my book in January of 2021, most of the conversations I'd had, most of the experience and discussions around this topic were with people in the US where I live. And I didn't know, I wasn't 100 % sure if this was...

Sort of a cultural thing that mostly showed up in the United States or if it had to do with you know some difference there I have since learned that this this Imposter syndrome the imposter phenomenon, whatever you want to call it, but self-doubt and the prevalence of it. It crosses all kinds of cultural socioeconomic geographic I've talked to people on every continent except Antarctica that have

wrestled with self-doubt. So..

Nate (45:44)
Well they do wrestle polar bears, mean it would make sense.

Kris Kelso (45:48)
Well, yes.

Perhaps, yeah. But to answer your question, there are some cultural differences in how it's talked about and who's willing and more open to talk about it. So you mentioned the LinkedIn post that initially connected us, where you tagged me and brought me into the conversation was a woman saying she didn't believe that any men dealt with imposter syndrome. And this has been a common misconception.

In part because the original research done in the 1970s on the imposter phenomenon was only done on women. It was thought to just be kind of a woman in a man's world problem of this pervasive self-doubt and feeling like an imposter. But multiple studies since then have shown that men and women experience it almost equally. However, in my experience, women are a lot more willing to talk about it.

And that difference between that willingness and that openness is more prevalent or it's more extreme in cultures that are more, how shall I say, more male dominated or where there's a lot more gender stereotypes and things like that. I have spoken in countries on other continents that

where men will privately acknowledge to me that yes, this is a thing, but they will not speak publicly about it. Not publicly. Interesting. I've run groups, I've run communities and group coaching programs, both here in the US and in other countries. And there are certain countries where men will not join those groups. They will not come and open up in the community of other men and especially in a mixed group with men and women. Wow.

Culture does play a role. I think, you know, to your point, it is that sort of feeling like I'm admitting a weakness or a flaw. This is what is really sinister about imposter syndrome and about self-doubt generally is if you doubt yourself or you worry that you might be a fraud, admitting that you worry about that makes you feel more like a fraud. So the very fear you have that people are going to look at you and go, you don't actually know what you're doing. You're not legit.

That is the same fear that keeps you from talking about it and acknowledging that, I have this self doubt. But Nate, I can tell you that over and over and over, when I have talked to two very high achieving people in private, it's incredibly prevalent. People will say, yes, I wrestle with self doubt, but I've just I've always been afraid to say anything about it. And I don't want I feel like society tells me I cannot show or demonstrate any form of weakness.

And so from that perspective, it is different across cultures, especially where that pressure is really there to not show weakness, to not admit a fault or a flaw. But that doesn't mean it's not happening. It just means that people are not willing to talk about it. And to be really honest with you, that's one of the reasons I, as a middle-class white male, decided I should write a book on this topic to show that it's not a minority issue, it's not a women's issue, it's not an issue of poverty or

Any other thing, it's, you know, I'm an American, I'm, you know, and yet I and many other people like me wrestle with self-doubt.

Nate (49:25)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in, in many ways, I guess the message coming from someone like you makes it all the more powerful. know, society might look at us.

Kris Kelso (49:35)
I mean,

that is exactly why I felt compelled and continue to feel compelled to speak up about this issue. And I've had many people say, thank you. I'm so glad to know that someone like you is willing to acknowledge that you have wrestled with self doubt.

Nate (49:50)
Yeah, so interesting. So you've shared a lot just now about some of the cultural and gender considerations here and some of the places where this is less likely to show up or at least be admitted to. What about on the flip side? I mean, you've spoken to people from all over the world, from all different corners and geographies and backgrounds and across many different industries too.

Are there any places where you've been surprised about the fact that this is showing up? And you know, people or parts of the world where you didn't think it would be a problem and maybe it actually is much more prevalent than you'd anticipate?

Kris Kelso (50:38)
It's a good question, I can't think of any. And maybe that's because I've just learned enough about it to not be surprised when it shows up anywhere. I've come to understand that this phenomenon, this experience of wrestling self-doubt, it is associated with being a high achiever. And so

You know, I've talked to fighter pilots and professional athletes and, you know, people who perform at the highest levels in their field. And many of them say, yeah, I have constantly wrestled with self doubt or maybe not constantly, but they've definitely had periods of time on their journey where they questioned themselves and they wondered, you know, sometimes when you reach an elite status, there's a lot of pressure to maintain that.

And that can be even more pressure than the pressure you faced trying to get there. And so the doubt can creep in in all sorts of ways. so to honestly answer your question, no, I'm not surprised by it anymore. There is almost nowhere that someone would say, yeah, I wrestle with self doubt and I would be shocked by that.

Nate (51:57)
Hmm, so interesting. Wow.

Well Kris this has been absolutely fascinating. I'm glad we've taken this conversation from your book to LinkedIn a couple of months ago. now having an opportunity to sit down with you one and one and learn more about this. Like I said, your work was tremendously helpful for me and I'm so grateful to the coach who put me onto you and then you writing that actual book. It was a real savior for me at the time and actually

Kris Kelso (52:11)
Yes.

Nate (52:32)
reread it recently in anticipation of this interview. So I wanted to ask you, mean, this is based on what we've talked about today. Like this is something that's pretty much inevitable if you're an entrepreneur or a founder that there's an incredibly high chance that, you know, folks are going to encounter this at some point in their journey in some shape or form. Now, if we assume that the number one, the number two thing that they should do is go and read your book.

But let's assume that maybe they haven't had time to do that yet. And someone's in the moment and they're dealing with a really serious bout of this right now. Are there any practical tips or strategies or tactics that you think peak pool could put into, you know, into play almost immediately to start improving their situation and feeling better about things?

Kris Kelso (53:28)
Yeah, I would say the number one thing that you can do is find someone that you can trust and open up and talk about it. Often just simply talking about those feelings and the thoughts going on and the mental game that's going on in your head. Talking about it sort of erodes its power. It doesn't completely eliminate it. It's not like you can have one conversation and be totally fine and walk away and it's done.

it helps a lot to talk with someone that knows your situation, that can speak some truth to you about your qualities and your abilities, preferably someone who's not just going to cheer lead, someone who's not just gonna say, I believe in you, you're great, you're amazing, I know you can do it. But someone who can, yeah, probably not your mom. Someone who can look at you honestly and say, Nate, you've been training for this,

You've worked hard to achieve this. You've been practicing. You've looked at all of the experience behind you that has led you to this place. And maybe it's a non-traditional route. Maybe it's not exactly what you would plan if you started from the beginning and mapped out the entire road. But you, all of the things you've done bring so many unique experiences that are gonna equip you to do this like no one else. Someone that can look at you objectively and help you see the things you're not seeing, help you

sort of overcome some of those blind spots. And then also they can, you know, help dispel some of those myths and lies that are going on in your head that someone that'll help you get out of the comparison trap, quit focusing on other people, look at your journey, figure out what do you want to learn next and where are you going to go and what kind of experiments are you going to run to do that and grow? Finding a person like that. And then, of course, the expansion of that is a community like that.

Nate (54:58)
Yeah.

Kris Kelso (55:24)
is immensely helpful and definitely what I would say to go do right away and then of course, as you said, grab a copy of my book and read it cover to cover or listen to it on Audible.

Nate (55:37)
Both good options, both good options. What I love about what you just mentioned was speaking to someone who can remind you of all the wonderful things you've done. And I think as an entrepreneur and founder, know, we're head down, we're solving problems all day. Like it can often feel like we're just banging our head against the wall day in and day out. Yes. Yes. I think it often takes a very intentional, you know, you need to have a very intentional step back or the perspective of an outsourced

side person to kind of remind you occasionally of like, you know what, you've actually done quite a lot here. You've come a remarkably long way. You've solved all of these problems already. You've already done something that most of the population would be incapable of having done. Like, you're already a freaking rock star. Like, yeah, of course you're going to have a bad day occasionally, but don't lose sight of the bigger picture here. So I think that's super important about your message there and gaining that...

perspective from people around you. So excellent suggestion. Well, thank you, Kris. This has been a fascinating conversation. I knew it would be. I've thoroughly enjoyed diving into this with you. If folks are interested in learning a little bit more about you and your work, maybe hiring you as a guest speaker at some point, which I understand you do a bit of, where should they go to learn more about you?

Kris Kelso (57:00)
Yes, I am easy to find online if you can remember that my name starts with a K, K-R-I-S-K-E-L-S-O. And I'm at kriskelso.com. I'm Kris Kelso on most of the major social platforms. And yes, Nate, I am a professional keynote speaker. I speak on stages and at private company events and conferences, universities around the globe and would love to speak to some of your...

friends in Australia as well. So looking for an opportunity to travel down there and do a gig. Let's hope we can make that happen with one of your listeners.

Nate (57:37)
There's a big market in Australia. Lots of people who could use your help down there, I'm sure I think. Anyway, Kris, thank you again. I'm gonna include links below to everything you just mentioned. I'll include your webpage and social handles in the show notes if folks are keen to check that out. I'm also going to include down there a link to your book online if people are interested in listening to that or grabbing a copy.

But that's it for today folks. Kris, thank you again for joining us and we'll see you all next time.

Kris Kelso (58:11)
Thank you, Nate. It's been a pleasure.