340: Imposter Syndrome And All My Insecurities Wrapped In One Episode With Steve Chou

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You’re listening to the My Wife, Quote, or Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful entrepreneurs and dig deep into what strategies they use to grow their businesses. And today is special because I’m sharing another episode of my other podcast with my business partner, Tony, called the Profitable Audience Podcast. Now, if you haven’t checked it out yet, both Tony and I leverage our experiences with blogging, running events, list building, YouTube, podcasting, membership sites, and digital products in order to teach you how to build and monetize your audience.

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So if you’re interested in starting your own online business, then please subscribe to the Profitable Audience Podcast and leave a review. We’re also giving away over $4,000 in prizes through our podcast contest over at profitableaudience.com slash contest. Once again, that’s profitableaudience.com slash contest. All right, so what’s up with today’s episode? As you know, the Profitable Audience Podcast is a place where I don’t really care about what I say, and it’s an opportunity for me to get real and talk about what’s on my mind. So today,

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I’m sharing with you an extremely personal episode where I talk about all my insecurities, my fears, my childhood. Basically all of my issues wrapped into one tight episode about imposter syndrome. But before we begin, I want to thank Postscript for sponsoring this episode. Postscript is my SMS or text messaging provider that I use for e-commerce and it is crushing it for me. I never thought that people would want marketing text messages, but it works. In fact, my tiny SMS list is performing on par with my email list, which is easily 10X larger.

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Anyway, Postscript specializes in text message marketing for e-commerce and you can segment your audience just like email. Also, it’s an inexpensive solution, converts like crazy, and you can try it for free over at postscript.io slash Steve. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash Steve. I also want to thank Klaviyo, who’s also a sponsor of the show. Businesses are always most successful when they own their own data, customer relationships, and their growth. That’s why more than 50,000 e-commerce brands like Living Proof, Solo Stove, and Nomad

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trust Klaviyo to deliver their ideal customer experience. Now having used Klaviyo for many years now, I can wholeheartedly say that Klaviyo is the best email automation platform in the world for e-commerce, and you’ll get everything you need to build strong relationships that keep your customers coming back. With advertising getting harder and more expensive, it’s time to take back control of your customer experience with email and SMS. So if you are ready to drive future sales and hire customer lifetime value with a marketing platform built for your long-term growth,

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Get a free trial at claviyo.com slash my wife. That’s K-L-A-V-I-Y-O dot com slash my wife. Now on to the show.

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Welcome to the profitable audience podcast where we teach you how to build a following that you can monetize. And today we’re going to talk about imposter syndrome. And I didn’t want to turn this into a racial podcast, Tony, but I think most Asians have this problem actually, because we are taught at a young age that we are not good enough and then we have to try harder. And as a result, we’re afraid of talking in general, actually. I don’t think you have this problem though at all, Tony, for as long as I’ve known you.

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I feel like you’ve always had this tremendous confidence that I don’t know where it comes from. mean, okay, why are we friends? how do you how do you get it? First off, what is imposter syndrome and how do you get over it? Well, you know, it’s funny that you said that you think every Asian has it because when I was researching this for the podcast today, I actually came across Do you know this is actually studied like the National Institute of Health has done studies on imposter syndrome.

03:32
I’m not surprised, but what do they say? I actually don’t know about the study. Yeah, I actually read through part of the medical documentation because it was so interesting to me. And basically, it’s not a what is I don’t know what the right word is. They don’t classify it as like a psychological problem because typically with imposter syndrome, it’s not something that you deal with your whole life. It’s a phase. So you have it sometimes and you don’t have it other times. So it can’t be considered like an actual diagnosis.

03:59
Whereas if you had depression, depression is something that you could have. It’s just categorized differently. But they’ve studied it in thousands and thousands of people. And basically what they’ve said is everybody has it at some point or another. I disagree with the study. All the studies, all this, you disagree with science. I feel like I’ve had it all of my life. And even today, I have problems getting over it. Maybe we could talk about that.

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When I wanted to start my blog, the first thing that my mom said was, what can you write about? And then I said, well, I’ve been just read about the store. And she’s like, well, the store doesn’t make enough money. I’m like, well, it’s doing six figures. She’s like, well, I mean, is it making millions? You know, it’s not like a Target or Walmart. And so I was like, oh, okay, ma. Well, I’m just gonna just write. And she’s like, okay, well, maybe I’ll read it. Or she said something like that.

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Okay, well, this isn’t going to be a podcast to talk about your mother. Is this? I know this is like a psychological podcast. Sorry. Okay. But the study, the studies that I read last night did say that a lot of imposter syndrome does come from your childhood. Yes. Yeah, you go. Yes. So does that mean that when you were a kid, since you don’t, okay, first of all, have you ever had imposter syndrome? Oh, absolutely. All the time. Really? Okay. So does that mean you hide it? Well, I hide it well, which is one of the points that we’ll talk about of how to get over it. Okay.

05:25
So clearly you can cover that section because I haven’t gotten over yet. I can talk about the childhood trauma part maybe. Yeah, okay. Dive deep into the archives of your life. All right, so you’re telling me that when you started your blog, you kind of knew that people were going to read it? Like you had the confidence? So yes, I did think people were going to read it, but there’s been other things that I’ve done. So for example, you and I both grew up taking piano lessons.

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Yes. I don’t know how serious your piano lessons were, but based on the fact that you’re Asian, I imagine you did compete. Yeah. Yeah. So probably very similar. And I can remember every single competition that I would go to or recital five seconds before I would sit down. I had forgotten the entire piece. Like I was so nervous and so scared. And like it wasn’t until I put my hands on the keys that it would all come back to me.

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But up until that second, I couldn’t have even told you the name of the song. That happens to me every single competition and even a recital actually. Yeah. And I think it’s that fear, right? That I don’t really know this. I’m not really good enough. I’m not going to play it correctly. I’m going to forget. I’m sorry. That’s not imposter syndrome, Tony. Well, but I think it is because especially if you’re in a recital, like, and I don’t know with your piano teacher, but in my piano teacher, like the little kids always played first. And, you know, as the recital went on, like the more advanced students,

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would play last, right? So you started out with like the kids popping out, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Hot Cross Buns. And then, you you tried to earn that last spot in the recital. Did your teacher do this? Okay. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Hot Cross Buns. What type of messed up piano lessons are these? You didn’t play classical music? So ours. No, I’m saying like, so my piano teacher had students that were like five and 18, right? Okay. So she had two. So in a recital, the five year olds always played first, right? And they’d get up there and do their little bastion.

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songs and you know as the as the kids came out like the better you were the later you went in the recital. Okay. Does that make sense? we had that too. Recitals I actually didn’t get as nervous at because there’s nothing on the line. Except for your family sitting there. Oh yeah but the thing is like for these competitions that I used to enter like we would literally drive three hours to the place. And there wasn’t even a cash prize that’s what bugged me.

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You just get these stupid little ribbons. I got a certificate. Like, I don’t even think I got a ribbon. But for the recital, the big deal was to be the last one. Like, if you were the last one, you were the best student. So I was the last one for several recitals. I was also one of the older students. like, if I wasn’t the last one as one of the older students, that’d be embarrassing, right? But I would always think like, I don’t belong here because there was another boy that was with my teacher and I thought he was better than me. He probably was better than me.

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technically, but I think I was better just overall. And so I beat him out. He used to go last and then I beat him out, right? Like for the last couple recitals I had, but I would always feel like I didn’t deserve to be last. I would get up there and everyone would know that maybe she just felt bad for me or you know, because I always got second last, you know what I mean? Like I didn’t feel like I was the one that should be last. If that’s the worst imposter syndrome story that you have, we got why are you

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Why are we giving this podcast? Maybe this is just be a psychological analysis of my childhood. Of your childhood, should we start back? Let’s talk when you were three years old, Steve, and you took your first algebra 2 course. I’ve got an even more recent story than that. Like back when I used to work in my full-time job, I had major imposter syndrome at my work, even though I had the degrees and the experience and that sort of thing. When I first went into work, I used to think that all engineers had everything meticulously planned out. There was a set way to write code and structure everything.

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And then just over the, so I was afraid to even put out anything because I was afraid it was gonna break. And then I found out that everyone at work is just winging it. And then it took me like 10 years to discover that. It took you 10 years? It did actually, because I have, everyone at where I used to work, and this is one of the reasons why I liked working there, everyone had PhDs from like MIT, Princeton, you know, and Stanford. And so I respected them tremendously. And I just didn’t realize that we’re all the same.

09:42
Okay, but think about this as someone who’s listening to this podcast right now. You have, you can correct me if I’m wrong. You have two engineering degrees from Stanford, right? mean a master’s in Sure. Yes. You have a bachelor’s and master’s in engineering. I mean, Stanford aside from being poor at sports is a pretty good academic school. Poor at sports. I mean, academically it’s no, it’s no FSU, but yeah, I hear what you’re saying.

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Academically, it is a well-respected school. If you say that that’s where your degree is from, there’s a level of respect that comes with that. Just like you just said, well, they had degrees from MIT. There’s a level of respect that comes with that. Sure. Yet even you with two degrees from an Ivy League school felt like a phony. Someone listening is like, well, I have no degree. How do I not feel like a phony? How does that work? Well,

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You just gotta do it, really. When my mom told me she wasn’t gonna read my blog, I still did it anyways. That’s like the most rebellious that I’ve ever been in my life. That’s probably true. I don’t know how you got, again, I don’t think you have imposter syndrome ever. At least I’ve never seen it. For me, it was just about doing it, it was just a means to an ends and just see what happens basically.

11:04
I do think everybody gets, I do think everybody has it at some point or another. I think some people suffer from it more. And I think we’ve met a lot of people, cause you and I, you we have the course, we speak a lot. Well, we used to speak at conferences. We haven’t done that lately, obviously, but we’ve met, we run an event, we’ve met a lot of people. And I think the thing that holds people back is fear. And it’s a lot of it’s rooted in feeling like, especially when we talk about creating something, right? It’s, don’t know enough.

11:33
I’m not smart enough, people don’t like me enough. That’s what keeps people from sort of making that leap from doing something that they like and are okay and to doing something that they love and are great at. I mean, also, and again, I’m just looking at myself this entire episode here. I think getting something perfect before you launch is like the biggest version of that, I think, right? Yeah. When we first launched our e-commerce store, like I was…

12:00
Mainly because of my peers. Like I knew my friends might someday find this site and so I was like super anal about making it perfect and that’s why it took so long to launch. I kept tweaking and tweaking it. When in reality, I don’t even think back then when we started, it didn’t even matter. We should have just gotten it out there earlier. Yeah, and I think we know some people who have launched really early, right? So they maybe are not in that imposter syndrome place and they launch, actually,

12:27
A good example is Jeff Rose, right? Didn’t he launch something without having anything created? He did. He just sent an email out and said, join this, and he had zero content. Obviously, he had built trust with his audience. I don’t know, but he had a really good amount of signups. If he had waited and tried to create this perfect thing before he did that, who knows what he would have missed out on?

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I don’t think Jeff has a lot of imposter syndrome, but he’d probably correct me on that. he does. I want to take some credit for that launch for him, by the way, because we’re in the same mastermind group and that’s how I launched my course. And he was like, oh, okay. You mean I just launched with nothing? I’m like, yeah. Well, here’s the thing I think with launching with nothing though, not to get derailed on launching, if what’s the worst thing is if you spend all this time create, we have people we know that we’ve spent a lot of time creating things and launch didn’t get a great response and realize they created the wrong thing.

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or created it in the wrong way. So almost that just jumping in and not having the perfection side of it is sometimes better for your business because there’s less risk, because you haven’t invested all this time and probably money in something that isn’t the right thing for you. Yeah, no, absolutely. mean, launching with nothing allows you to massage things as you go along. I mean, so we’re getting a little bit off track of imposter syndrome here. I’ll swing us back. So you did bring up a good point.

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And I love that quote, like perfection is the enemy of the good, where you get so focused on having everything perfect that you can’t just launch something that’s good. And I think that’s a way that people that feel like they have imposter syndrome or have imposter syndrome make excuses.

14:03
It’s not ready, it’s not done, I’m not ready to go. I mean, I’ve done, you’ve seen me do this, right? I’m not ready, I’m not ready. Actually, you know what? Maybe that’s like your biggest form of imposter syndrome. It is, it’s the perfection, right? I want it to be perfect, just for the same reasons you do, because my friends are gonna see it, or people that I value, and I don’t want them to think that I’m not good enough, or I don’t know enough. So that perfection gets in the way of action. And I think that’s a way that people can have imposter syndrome and not hide it. A lot of people are purposely trying to hide it, but.

14:33
It masks itself as that perfectionist. There’s actually a quote that I like. I’m trying to think exactly what it is right now. It’s like if it’s perfect by the time you launch, you’ve launched too late. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And then the other thing that you mentioned just a second ago is the mastermind part. And I think that’s one great way to get over imposter syndrome is to have a group of people who are your cheerleaders, just like your mom didn’t quite think that you were making the right decision.

15:01
when you were launching the blog, you had, I don’t know, maybe you didn’t, but if you had other people that were cheering you on, that would help influence you to maybe realize that your mom just probably wasn’t understanding what you were doing. And then, I mean, she still doesn’t really understand what you do fully. And- She’s come around. Yeah, it’s taken a while. You had to get on Google, right? But I think, you know, if you have a group of people that are there to support you and like you pushed Jeff, right, to just launch it.

15:31
If you have that, can kinda help combat imposter syndrome. So, since we’re on that subject, I feel that your friends that are, the ones that actually have full-time jobs and whatnot, they’re probably not gonna be the ones that support you. I remember when we first started our e-commerce store and we wanted to sell handkerchiefs, everyone was like, oh yeah, that’s great, but I could tell deep down that they weren’t, they didn’t think it was gonna work, basically. So you basically have to find people that,

16:00
do similar things, I feel. Yeah, it’s total tangent, but I have to tell you this because I forgot to tell you earlier. So was talking to my parents the other day, and I said something about you. And I said something about Bumblebee. Because I think my family only knows you as like Seller Summit and the stuff we do together. Like they don’t have any idea. Sure. And my dad says he sells what? And I said, hankies. Oh, I was talking about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Oh, OK. And I said he sells hankies.

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Dad said he’s, like he couldn’t, like acted like he didn’t hear me. I was like, hankies. And he said, no, no he doesn’t. And I was like, yes, that’s what he sells. So anyway, I can see that. Like you’re, I mean, even my dad who like has no interest in, is like, you can’t make a living selling, I think he said something like that. You can’t make a business selling hankies. I was like, well.

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And then I was like, well, they embroider him as if that’s the set. like, oh, little Steve embroidered the handkerchiefs too. I’m like, I mean, that is kind of your value prop. But I like I was immediately like, they embroider him. It’s great. Steve loves to sew. Oh, great. I wonder what your dad thinks about me now. Oh, my gosh. Anyways, it’s pretty funny. But you’re right. Like your friends that have full time jobs and all that, it’s definitely probably not your group. But that’s why I think it’s important to get in with a group of people that are

17:20
like-minded with you because that’s gonna help you. They’re gonna push you forward and force you to do some things that maybe are a little bit out of your comfort zone. Yeah, and just for that, your dad is no longer being, he has no chance of being a member of my mastermind group. Yeah. Good, I don’t think you talk enough about tractors. Actually, you know what’s funny is I was kind of ashamed to sell those things in the very beginning, Precisely for that reaction, because I’m a guy too, right? I mean, what guy sells handkerchiefs?

17:47
Now it’s actually kind of a funny story though, right? We can laugh about it now, but. For sure. But I think that’s a big component is just surrounding yourself with people that believe in you because then when you are feeling like, I can’t do this or I don’t know enough, your friends can remind you of all the things that you’ve accomplished along the way that do make you capable of.

18:08
being able to teach or have a course or have a membership site or run a podcast or start a YouTube channel, right? Whatever it is doesn’t necessarily mean you have to start a store selling hankies. And I actually, I think you’ve said this before and I heard someone else say it the other day on a podcast is that you really only need to know like 10 % more than the people you’re teaching. I think there’s this expectation with people that if I’m gonna do something and call myself not an expert, I don’t like the word expert, but if I’m gonna…

18:35
present myself as a leader in that field, right? I have to know everything. And nobody knows everything, right? Like that’s just unrealistic. I mean, realistically speaking, I’ve heard that quote before, the 10 % quote. I personally think from my perspective, I think 10 % is too little. Yeah, of course you do. I need to know a little bit more about You’re like, need to know 95%. That’s your life. But I’ll give you an example. Like my buddy, who’s one of my close friends,

18:59
He’s always kind of like on the bleeding edge of technology, but he, you know, he’s not an expert. He just does a little bit of research, but he’s always a step ahead of me. And he actually writes about like the tech that he uses, right? I mean, he just kind of documents everything and I always follow his stuff. And I wouldn’t say he’s the expert in anything because he’s just dabbling and learning about it. But he actually has built a following just writing these little tech reviews, you know, of these little things that he just uses.

19:26
So you even have to be an expert or even know a lot about it. Right. And I think that’s honestly something that’s really valuable for people is if they’re watching you learn, but you’re a couple steps ahead of them. Right. So I mean, I think because I think the problem, too, is if you if you become like the world’s foremost expert in something, you’re probably out of touch a little bit with the people that are in the beginning and you’re not as helpful. So if you can start documenting what you’re doing and talking about things when you’re a couple steps ahead of people, I think that’s a real advantage.

19:56
Yeah, I actually distrust people that call themselves experts, because there’s some stigma about that word where if you become an expert at something, I’m willing to bet that you kind of slack off a little bit. You know what I mean? Okay, no I don’t know. Here’s the psychology behind it. If you’re an expert on something, then if there’s something that you don’t know, you might not admit that publicly. Oh yeah, yeah, for sure. You know what I’m saying? And then,

20:24
You just kind of play it off like you’re still the expert and you’re not learning anymore. And actually I think that’s something for me that I had to get okay with is that I hated, I think you and I talked about this before we launched our course is that if someone asks me a question, I want to be able to answer it. Because if I can’t answer it right then I feel like I’m a fake. If I don’t have your answer right that second, then who am I?

20:47
But I realize that sometimes your expertise and your knowledge comes in either knowing how to quickly find the answer, knowing the right people to talk to, knowing how to find the answer, because there’s a lot of people out there that don’t even, they’re not knowledgeable enough to know where to look, right? Because they don’t fully understand the problem, which is fine, because they’ll get there, they’re learning. But that’s part of the reason why you can become a teacher or a leader for people, because you know where to go to get the answers for people too. Right, I mean, some people don’t even know what questions to ask, really. Right.

21:17
Yeah. All right. Well, let’s talk about how to get over this imposter syndrome. Like we’d run a course over at profitableaudience.com and a lot of our people, they’re scared to start or they’re not sure about what to create content about. What are some steps that people out there feeling this can take? So something that I actually read last night, which I thought was a pretty interesting take on the whole imposter syndrome is they actually recommend starting to teach and educate people on the subject that you feel like you’re

21:47
faking about, right? Because the more you teach, the more you learn. And I actually, when I read that, I thought, you know, that’s actually 100 % true because I know you and I, we’ve both been blogging for a million years, right? 10 plus years. We started this course. I think we have a pretty deep knowledge of content marketing. But there’s been things that have come up in the course that we didn’t know the answers to. And I think just even launching the course has made both you and I do things better. Yeah.

22:16
Absolutely, and I’ll give you the perfect example of that. We just gave a lecture on site speed, and I know for me, I know a lot of stuff, but on my priority list sometimes, certain things that we teach might not be number one on my priority list, or there’s so many different things going on in business that I can’t always do everything perfectly, right? And the site speed thing, I recently revisited it, and then I actually did a lot more research, because it had been a while.

22:43
and learned a lot more new things that I actually ended up implementing and breaking my sight on occasion. That’s beside the point. But yeah, just teaching it actually makes you better at what you’re teaching about also in the process. I think it builds your confidence, right? As you teach it.

22:59
and explain it to others, whatever you’re talking about. It doesn’t have to be in the form of a course either. If you’re running a podcast about a specific topic, the more you’re talking about it, the more you’re interviewing experts or talking to people, the more not you’re. And I think in your knowledge growing, your imposter syndrome is going to shrink. I think another thing that helps imposter syndrome shrinking is for me, like when we started running the course, is that people are coming to me. And I’ve run a blogging conference for a long time too. So this isn’t a new thing for me to be teaching this.

23:27
but having people come to you and ask questions sort of confirms to me that, people do trust me. People do feel like I can give them an answer. And the more that that happens, the more confident you get in your ability to help other people. Also, there’s a huge difference in just doing something and teaching it. So, for example, like I run my own ads and they’re profitable, but then when you actually have to teach it, you actually have to go and when you break it down step by step, there’s like a,

23:57
whole lot more that you learn about yourself in the process as well. Yeah, and I think both you and I, it’s been funny. We’ve found all these problems, not problems, opportunities for improvement on our own websites because we’ve been teaching it. So I think just the process of teaching others helps you get over it because you’re just forcing yourself to keep learning. We’ve been talking about teaching a lot here. You don’t even have to teach anything to just put out content and build an audience. I mean, there’s armies of…

24:26
of vloggers on YouTube that all they do is just talk about their life, right? And to me sometimes, I even think to myself, why is anyone watching these people? But you can actually put out content and build an audience just based on your personality alone, right? So you don’t even have to teach anything. I think that though, I will say, is probably the toughest way to get over imposter syndrome. Because you have to believe that your life is interesting enough that people are just gonna listen to you talk about your life, right?

24:56
That’s true. But it’s possible because I mean, but that’s easy too, right? It’s very easy. Yes. Yeah. Yes, for sure. You don’t have like you’re not really an imposter because you’re just being yourself. I guess the only the syndrome would be if people just think you’re dumb or make fun of you, guess. Right. I love it. You go right to. Well, the problem would be people would think you were dumb. But that kind of.

25:21
wraps around to the fake it till you make it point, right? Actually, you know what? Yeah, let’s talk about that point, because I actually don’t like that statement. OK, I didn’t think you would. I put it in the notes and I thought he’s going to say, I thought you would say something before that we recorded, but I’m glad that you’re just throwing it on me now. But I want to hear your take on that first. I OK, so I think fake it is not the fake that you’re thinking. I think you’re thinking. So I immediately thought this is what Steve’s going to going to say.

25:46
because we get a lot of emails saying, I want to teach a course on how to make money online, but I don’t make any money online. Yes, we get that a lot. We do. Yes. And I understand. I understand why people want to do that, because there’s a lot of there’s a lot of opportunity in that space. And it’s lucrative if you can do it the right way. But the only way that you will be successful is if you’re actually making money online. And the people that tend to come to us with that are people that haven’t started doing that yet. And so you’re not you don’t have that trust factor with people or believability.

26:13
So I don’t think it’s fake it like that. I don’t think it’s like say that you’re something that you’re not. I say it’s to me it’s faking the confidence, right? Which is like probably why you think I don’t have a posture system because I’m very good posture syndrome because I’m very good at faking the confidence so that it appears that I think I know things but I mean I know things but it appears that I’m more confident in my knowledge than I really am. That’s the thing. Really? Yes. If you sell on Amazon or run any online business for that matter,

26:43
the most important aspect of your long-term success will be your brand. And this is why I work with Steven Weigler and his team from Emerge Council to protect my brand over at Bumblebee Linens. Now, what’s unique about Emerge Council is that Steve focuses his legal practice on e-commerce and provides strategic and legal representation to entrepreneurs to protect their IP. So for example, if you’ve ever been ripped off or knocked off on Amazon, then Steve can help you fight back and protect yourself. Now, first and foremost, protecting your IP starts with a solid trademark.

27:11
And Emerge Council provides attorney-advised, strategic trademark prosecution, both in the United States and abroad for a very low price. And furthermore, the students in my course have used Steve for copyrighting their designs, policing against counterfeits and knockoffs, agreements with co-founders and employees, website and social media policies, privacy policies, vendor agreements, brand registry, you name it. So if you need IP protection services, go to EmergeCouncil.com and get a free consult. And if you tell Steve that I sent you, you’ll get a $100 discount.

27:41
That’s E-M-E-R-G-E-C-O-U-N-S-E-L.com. Now back to the show.

28:07
Have you heard that whenever, I don’t know, because you’ve done a lot of public speaking. I don’t know if you’ve taken any public speaking courses or watched any self-help type videos on that, but they talk about going into the bathroom right before you speak and doing the Superman pose or doing- I do not do any of those things, but go on. I’m curious about these tactics. I like how you’re like, I would never, I would never do anything like that. It really works. It really works if you have something-

28:35
that builds up your confidence before you get on stage. So is that what you do in the bathroom privately? The superman pose? I’m probably adjusting my Spanx in the bathroom. Let’s be real. No, but listening to a certain song that hypes you up or texting a friend who’s going to tell you that you’re awesome. There’s things that you can do to help build your confidence before you get on stage. So that’s the faking. It’s the faking of I can do this. I can get through it.

29:05
I can tell my life story and have it be engaging. I can get on stage and talk about something and feel like people are gonna listen to me and think it’s helpful. So you have to fake that confidence level. I do the opposite, actually. I tell myself, hey, what’s the worst that can happen up there? People aren’t gonna laugh me off stage. Chances are people don’t have tomatoes. Chances are, And so, and it’s only like,

29:33
an hour of my time and people have short memories. It might be bad for a little bit, but then in a month everyone will forget about it. I mean, cause you have had a bad moment on stage. Have I? Yes, do you remember? Which one are you talking about? When I made that bad joke? When you made the bad joke. That was just very minor. I got really good marks for that speech actually. It was cringy. It was cringy, come on. Yeah. No, but it’s interesting. So you don’t feel confident.

30:02
You don’t try to make yourself feel confident before you get on stage. No. I just. You’re completely pessimistic. What is the worst thing that could happen? I could trip and fall on the way up. Yes. I just say, what’s the worst thing that can happen? And that actually makes me feel better. But I don’t pump myself up or anything like that. I just kind of go up and just be myself for the most part. OK, well, science would say that you should not do that.

30:26
Okay. So for people listening. Actually, no, I call my mom. She always gives me real confidence. Like, are you sure that they’re there to listen to you? Did they make a mistake? Are you sure they have the right Steve to? Okay. So, let’s see. Okay. So here just, just another side to that. When this is people in my profitable online store course, when they are looking for vendors to source their physical products online,

30:53
you have to, like if you’re a complete noob, you have to approach the vendor with more confidence that you know what you’re doing. Otherwise they might not take you seriously. So I see the value in that, being confident or projecting confidence, even though you might not actually have it inside. Is that what you mean by fake it till you make it? Yeah, I don’t mean you should fake, like put out BS, right? I think you need to, you have to.

31:19
know what you’re educating people are talking about or whatever it is, right? Whatever your topic is, you do have to know something unless your whole shtick is like, watch me learn something. You know, that could be it too. So I think you have to have an understanding of what you’re communicating to people. However, I think you have to fake because if you don’t and you think that you’re not qualified or not capable or not able to do it, you’re never going to do it. You know, what’s funny is about all this is we had this conversation the other day where I actually, I think I told you that

31:48
People who are just too confident, I don’t trust at all. Yes, I know. Why are we friends? There was a study that said that people who just are just, they project confidence, really they’re just dumb. That obviously wasn’t the exact words of the study. As you just told me like 25 minutes ago in this podcast, you’re so confident. So now I know what you really think of me, thank you. If you think you know everything, then chances are you don’t know as much as you think. Absolutely. I should find that study.

32:18
But see, this is why I’m a little hesitant to say, like you should go out with confidence, but always keep an open mind that you’re not the best. Told by a clearly child risen in an Asian home. That is Asian parenting right there. Yes. OK. But here’s the thing. I think that you’re.

32:42
I think the people that struggle with this imposter syndrome, to the point where it’s crippling, where they’re not taking action on their goals or their dreams or whatever it is, they could use all the confidence in the world. They’re not going to have that problem. The people that we’re talking about are just probably jerks in general. So I think there’s a, I don’t know, there’s two different groups of people. I would say there’s probably not.

33:08
a lot of people with like severe imposter syndrome that are come off crosses overconfident, annoying people. Sure. Maybe, I don’t know. I mean, okay, so I think for those people who don’t have like self-confidence, I think that they’ve just been probably watching too much or looking at too much social media and Instagram, right? Well, it’s interesting because in a couple of the studies that I read, they talked about how social media has actually made this worse. it’s- Oh, I believe it. Yeah, because-

33:36
And this is the thing, like, I believe if you want to launch something or start something or create something for yourself, a new business or idea, you actually need to get off social media, except for obviously promoting whatever you’re doing, right? But I think you should never get on Facebook, never get on Instagram, never get on TikTok, because you will see this world that other people are putting on there that’s so phony.

34:00
and so curated, right? Because you’re gonna be that same curator of phony content. It’s not phony, but you’re putting your best self forward on social media. Most people don’t go on social, well, okay, not most people. Some people go on social media and talk about how terrible their lives are. But for the most part, people are on social media to humble brag. So if you’re sitting there scrolling, which everybody does, all you see is this curated perfection and it’s not real.

34:26
But if you already are struggling with this, then it’s just gonna push it down. It’s gonna push it on you even more. This is funny. There’s this one person that I follow on Instagram. I had never met in real life. I was scrolling through and her picture is like she looks great. And then I actually met her at a conference once. I didn’t even recognize her. You’re talking about me? Thanks. So I mean, it can have the opposite of effect too, right? Yeah. But yeah, the point is,

34:56
stay off of social and it’s all fake. All those ads too, since we’re kinda like about money making and all that stuff, I just tend to think that this is kinda fake. There’s always an underlying story. for example, those people that grew to like millions of dollars in like three months or whatever, I bet their life is kind of like a wreck. I mean, there’s nothing that happens like that without consequences either. And you see those people, and it’s unfortunate because obviously you and I wanna see everybody succeed.

35:25
But it’s unfortunate that you what happens is and I think and the other thing is we’ve been doing this a really long time. So you see people who sort of rise very quickly and then they have this just crash and burn right because Yes, they did accomplish a lot in a short period of time, but there was no balance in their life. They just went a hundred miles an hour until everything blew up for them. So I think there’s a lot of unhealthiness in that as well. The other thing that I wanted to talk about before I forget is a lot of people that suffer from this don’t believe

35:55
that their success is due to their hard work or their accomplishments, they think they’re lucky. And you will hear people say this when you compliment them and they’ll say, oh, I just got lucky. Oh, I just came in at the right time. They don’t, and I’m not saying someone should be just taking credit and gloating for things, but you’ll hear it in how people talk because they won’t acknowledge the fact that, I mean, you had a pretty successful career in engineering from what I’ve heard. And I’m sure that…

36:21
if someone says something to you, you would probably have a combination of, you worked hard, but I just got lucky. I came in the company at the right time. mean, I have my philosophy on luck. What is it? curious. and I think I got this from JD, which is our mutual friend. Like when you work hard, you’re getting additional lottery tickets. Yes. And so you might get lucky with less lottery tickets and work less hard. But the harder you work, the more likely that you get, basically.

36:50
Yeah, I agree. I totally agree with that. But I think what people struggle with is not taking credit for the work that they did, that they think it’s all luck. That’s part of imposter syndrome. It’s thinking that this isn’t because I worked really hard or I had two jobs or I went to school and studied. It’s not because of that. It’s because I just got lucky. And I think people need to if you struggle from imposter syndrome, one of the things that I think is really helpful in overcoming it is making a list of your accomplishments, making a list of the things that you’ve done in your life.

37:19
whether it’s promotions or people you’ve helped or things that you’ve done. It doesn’t have to be all work-based. It could be someone that you helped out in your personal life or something that you did with a charity and making a list of those things so that when you are thinking about doing the next thing, you can look at this list and say, hey, I’ve done some pretty cool things in my life. I can do this next thing as opposed to thinking, I just got lucky and I don’t know if I can get lucky again. That’s true. Like have you done any of these things?

37:47
I know for me I just talk to a friend I guess. You’re pretty good at pumping people up actually. I like to pump people up, yeah. My list, yes. You’re like, how long is your list of things that you think you’ve done well? Well actually I am curious how you do it because you do project confidence with practically everything. Do you have any techniques that you personally use? I do think a lot about, I used to do this when I would do the piano. The piano recital thing really messed me up. It can we not talk about this piano?

38:18
I know it was 100 years ago, but whatever. No, but I used to think like, no, I deserve to be here. I practice four hours a day. I take extra lessons. I was a piano teacher at the time. I was teaching younger students. I would remind myself of all the things that I was doing to get me to that place to say that you deserve to be here. You didn’t get here because of any other reason other than you worked hard. So I try to think about that. Like when you and I talked about starting the blog course, I was very hesitant.

38:45
for a long time in doing this. I thought it was the work factor. Meaning like you didn’t think you had any time in your schedule for it. Right. There was a lot of that. But there was I mean there was definitely a component of am I qualified to do this? Shut up. Another 100 percent. That is true. Now now whatever we’re not friends anymore. No there was definitely a factor of because here’s the thing I know what I’m good at with blogging. I know the things that I succeed at but there are some things about blogging that I suck at.

39:13
Like, please, technology, come on. I mean, you asked me something the other day. was like, I don’t know who did that on my site. I have no clue. Like, there’s things about that world of content marketing that I don’t know anything about. And so I had to get over that to be able to agree to do the course. So the way I did that was to think of all the things that I did do well and that I do know a lot about so that I realized, but if I don’t know everything, I mean, that’s why I think we make a good team, because you know a lot of things that I don’t know anything about. Well, that’s all was about to say. Like, you wouldn’t be covering the tech parts anyway. So why?

39:42
why would you feel like you needed to know that stuff? Because I think it’s just, because it’s kind of like when you asked me that question the other day and I had no idea, like was a little bit embarrassing. cause sometimes you’ll say, well, and sometimes you’ll say, and this is not bad about you, this isn’t like a therapy session for our friendship, but you’ll say, how can you not know that? You know, like, you’ll make- never say that first of all, never. Not in that way, but you’ll make a comment like, really? Or to me, I take it as like, clearly this is something I should know. But I realize it like,

40:12
I don’t care that I don’t know it. You know what I say that, it’s not because that you don’t know it, it’s because that you would trust someone to do something to your site that you didn’t know about. absolutely. Rather than actually knowing it. Yeah. Right. And we have a little bit different philosophies on that too, which is fine. But I think that I had to remind myself of all the things. that’s, I don’t, I I get very nervous for public speaking. Very, very nervous.

40:36
And you know that, because I almost didn’t, well didn’t speak for like two years because I just was like, it was just causing me too much anxiety to I thought I walked in on you doing like the gorilla pose in front of mirror. Yes, yes, yes, me stomping my feet and jumping up and down. No, but I didn’t speak for like a year year and a half because I was like, this is too stressful for me, I don’t want to do it right now. And then I felt, you know, I got over my issues. after that speech when it went really well, you got a little cocky.

41:04
But I think that helps you with imposter syndrome. It’s OK to pat yourself on the back when you do a good job. It’s OK when you start your YouTube channel, right, and you’re talking about your day or some tool that you like or whatever you’re talking about. We talk about starting an NBA channel, right? You’re talking about things and you get your first 10 subscribers. It’s OK to jump up and down and be really excited about that. And I think those are the things that help you keep going and help you continue to create because you’re allowing yourself to take credit.

41:33
for the things that you’ve done. And that’s why think one of the core pieces of why people struggle with this is because they don’t allow themselves to take credit. So from somebody who does have imposter syndrome, I actually go into everything thinking it’s going to fail. And then when things work out better, I’m pleasantly surprised. And I’m not disappointed. That’s another way of doing it. But I feel like you haven’t had a lot of failures. I mean, it depends what you define as failures. I mean, you change things up, right? Things might not work the first time, and you change things up.

42:01
So do you view those things as failures or do you view them as something that you learn from and make improvements? No, I think it’s just maybe it’s because I’m an engineer, but I don’t expect anything to work the first time I code something up, right? Like I literally don’t expect anything to work. And then I know that it’s just going to take some time to refine it. Okay. So for you, since you say that you do struggle with imposter syndrome, which I also find to be quite funny because you

42:26
I don’t struggle with it. It’s just a life thing. I mean, it’s not really a struggle anymore. It’s just a story of my life. We can’t say you struggle. It’s something that you’ve experienced in your life, we could say. Which is not a phase. I just want to mention, since you quoted an NIH study, how am going to refute an NIH? Listen, isn’t that where your mom works? Actually, it is where my mom works. That’s why I use this study. I’m like, can’t challenge it. His mother works there. For you, what do you do?

42:54
Like what, how do you feel? Because I feel like you’ve been able to launch multiple different types of businesses. I mean, you started a podcast, you didn’t know anything about podcasting. You started an e-commerce store, you didn’t know anything about e-commerce. You started a website, you didn’t know anything about websites. So you’ve done a lot of things that most people who struggle with this probably would have a very, very tough time doing. Start a conference, you know anything about conferences. Well, I had you for that, so that’s not fair. Well, but still you were willing to do it. I think there’s still. Yeah, so.

43:22
I think I’ve talked about this in the past, but I go through everything thinking it’s gonna be a slog and then I’ll just keep doing it until it works. I mean, I’ll give you the perfect example right now, the YouTube channel, which I just been doing for six months. I mean, I’ll be honest with you, it’s not growing that quickly. I’m happy with the growth, but it’s just been a slog, but I know in like a couple of years, it’s gonna be good. So it’s just about getting used to suffering and getting used to the grind, really.

43:51
I mean, that’s the story of my childhood, Like every day was like a grind. So people that weren’t raised by Asian parents, how can they? Well, you have to get used to it. You have to go into it saying, OK, this is going to be a slog. I’m going to do this, though, for many years and eventually good things will happen. That’s probably not the best way to like end this podcast on a positive note. But that’s what I really believe. What is your philosophy? I’m a believer of

44:20
Honestly, think the biggest thing you can do is surround yourself with people that believe in you. Because the more the people around you believe in you, the more you believe in yourself. And they will, because I think, I mean, I agree with you that there’s suffering, but a lot of people- this partnership, mean, clearly I believe in suffering. I believe in a lot of suffering. But I think a lot of people probably don’t have the background to be able to endure three years of a slog of YouTube. Initially, they don’t have that mindset.

44:50
when they get started. So I think what will help you get that ability to slog through things is people around you, whether it’s like, no matter what you call it, focus group, mastermind group, meetup, whatever, that will push you and continue to cheer for you and subscribe when they don’t care about whatever you’re doing. You need those people because to do that alone and to suffer alone and slog alone is really tough. It’s not just that actually.

45:20
For the mastermind groups, what’s benefited me also is knowing that other people have faced the same issues that I have. And just knowing that what you’re going through is normal. And I think if you have, even if it’s like one or two people, you don’t need a giant group, that that’s gonna help you get through a lot of feelings of I don’t belong here, I don’t belong in this niche, I don’t belong on YouTube. And if you have those people to…

45:48
be there for you, talk about their experiences, I think it’s really helpful. And I think we’re gonna do a whole podcast on masterminds anyway. We are. But let’s wrap this up, right? So the key ways to overcome imposter syndrome, one is just to do it regardless of whether you think you’re perfect or not. Two was the mastermind group. then- off social media. That’s three. that’s actually a very important one. Yeah, I think that’s probably the first.

46:12
first thing you should do is get off social media. Stop comparing yourself to other people. Stop comparing yourself to other people that are doing similar things, like completely. And then you mentioned just start teaching. Yeah. Right. Even though you don’t think you’re you know more than anyone else, just start teaching what you know. Actually, incidentally, that’s how the blog, my blog got started. Yeah, actually, that’s kind of how mine got started, too. OK. And I think I think it’s important when you’re in that moment of feeling inadequate or that you don’t belong. Write stuff down. Make a list. Text yourself.

46:42
right? Text yourself the things that you’ve accomplished in your life so that you can look back and realize that you do deserve to be doing the things that you’re doing and you deserve the success that you’ve already experienced. And the last one was fake it to make it, which I don’t really like that slogan. So just just be confident. Project confidence.

47:01
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47:29
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