In this episode of Do This, Not That, host Jay Schwedelson discusses imposter syndrome, the importance of trying new things despite self-doubt, and the problem with receiving advice from inexperienced sources. He also touches on the issue of inauthentic support for small businesses started by friends or acquaintances.

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Best Moments:

(00:54) Imposter syndrome and its impact on business and career

(01:52) Nobody truly knows everything, even successful entrepreneurs

(02:25) Bill Gates' early failure with Traf O Data before Microsoft

(03:56) Steve Ballmer's incorrect prediction about the iPhone's market share

(04:28) The dangers of negative self-talk

(05:13) The importance of trying new things and learning from experience

(06:13) Milton Hershey's initial failure in the candy business

(07:20) The problem with getting advice from inexperienced sources

(09:40) Everyone experiences imposter syndrome to some degree

(11:16) The issue of inauthentic support for friends' business ventures

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Foreign.

Welcome to do this, not that, the podcast for marketers. You'll walk away from each episode with actionable tips you can test immediately.

You'll hear from the best minds in marketing who will share tactics, quick wins, and pitfalls to avoid. Also, dig into life, pop culture, and the chaos that is our everyday. I'm Jay Schwedelson. Let's do this, not that.

We are back for the do this, not that podcast presented by Maragold. And normally I rattle off some stats and some tips, and you try to put those in your marketing campaigns. You see how they do Today.

I want to share something a little bit different. I wanted to talk about imposter syndrome because it's driving me bananas. Listen, nobody has a clue. I don't have a clue.

And what's going on out there is two things.

Number one, you're being held back in your business, in your career, because maybe you think that you are not a fraud, but kind of a fraud that you don't know enough about the thing that you want to try. Okay? That you're just getting going in this thing, and who am I to even try to do this because I don't know how to do it Right.

Or you're getting advice from people that are saying, oh, no, no, don't do that, do this instead. And they've never actually done it themselves. Or they did it 45 million years ago. Right? So it's creating this imposter syndrome for you.

And I want to tell you that nobody knows what's going on. I want to give you some specifics about how to deal with. Deal with that.

But when I say nobody knows, okay, Elon Musk doesn't know what he's talking about. He's making up everything. The guy who started Chat GPT doesn't know what he's talking about. The biggest business people in the world.

I'm not saying anything negative about them. It's not about them specifically. It's about all of us. Nobody knows what they're talking about.

We're trying stuff out, and if it works, great, we're going to double down. If it doesn't work, okay, we're gonna pivot. And that is how it works. And.

And you have to get really comfortable knowing that stuff is not going to work. Let's talk about, for example, Bill Gates. Bill Gates founded Microsoft. He's one of the richest dudes in the world. He's a genius, right?

But he didn't get it right right out of the Gates. Not like he started Microsoft and He just crushed it. That's not what happened. He had a company, okay, that he started with Paul Allen.

That's the other dude who started Microsoft. It was called Traff o Data. Traff T R A F O Data. And what that company did was you ever drive on the.

On the road and there's like a little rubber, like black core. You drive over that and then you drive over another black cord. And they're measuring whatever the hell it is that they're measuring.

Well, he did and Paul Allen did. And they're like, wow, we could build a whole company around that data. And it was going to be called Draft of data. And it was an epic failure. Okay?

But coming out of that, they're like, oh, that's why this didn't work. Let's try this thing with Microsoft. And that's how that started.

And everyone's like, oh, he's Bill Gates. He must know. And that's like, anybody in your life, Anybody that's like, oh, they must know. They know what they're talking about. It's not true.

They were talking about the iPhone had just come out and he said, there's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. That's a quote by Steve Ballmer. Okay, why?

Because they had their phone, it was called Zune or something like that, and they thought they were going to beat the iPhone. Nobody knows what they're talking about. And it's actually really important to understand that because what do we all do?

We go into this trap of negative self talk. I talk to people all the time. I tell them, don't do that. They'll be like, they'll start out a conversation, Listen, I don't actually know any.

I don't know what I'm talking about here or I'm not really good at this. Can you Help me out with this or I'm really. I'm uncomfortable about this because I've never done it. Don't do that.

Don't start out with negative self talk, because here's the secret. Nobody actually knows. Nobody knows what's going on.

And if you have negative self talk, number one, that seeps into your body, then all of a sudden you really think that you can't do it. And that's how the impostor syndrome stuff happens. And then the people around you have no confidence in you. Okay, you got to try stuff.

That's the way it works when you actually try to do anything. I've never put on a webinar. Do it. Here's what's going to happen after you do that webinar. It's not going to go perfectly.

And you're like, wow, the next time I do a webinar, I'm going to do this. And instead you're going to have the experience. How about you run a LinkedIn ad? It is very complicated for some reason to run a LinkedIn ad.

You've never done it, okay? Don't get advice from 75 different people that have never done it before. Spend 50 bucks, run that LinkedIn ad, and then it's not going to go well.

But the next time you run that LinkedIn ad, you're going to do better because you're going to know what to do. Maybe you never sold a digital course before, but you really want to be like, I'm not up to that. I'm not ready for that. I don't know how to do that.

I'm not like all these other people that are crushing with that. But you do it, okay, and it goes horribly wrong. But then you do it again, and guess what? It goes better. How about Milton Hershey? Okay?

Milton Hershey, the dude who started, you know, the Hershey company, all the. Every candy that we eat, that guy opened up a candy store.

And if somebody told you that Milton Hershey opened up a candy store, you're like, well, he must have crushed it, because he knows what he's doing. He spent six years running this really bad candy store, and it went out of business, okay? It was not a success. He had credit issues.

He had all these issues for six years. He tried to do this thing. And then what happened? He figured out stuff, and then he started the Hershey's company, and that's what happens.

And so it's like my own business. I look back on the first guru conference that we did. That's one of our large email marketing virtual events that we do and we did a few years back.

The first one, I. It's so cringe to me. I look at him like, oh, my God, I can't believe we did these things. They were so bad. They were so. It was horrible.

But then the ones I did after that got better because I learned all this stuff. Now here's the stuff I can't stand as it relates to imposter syndrome and trying to overcome it. What do we all do?

We go to people and we try to get advice. Say, okay, I'm thinking about doing this. And you go to somebody that you think is smart and you say, what do you think about this? Okay?

And they'll give you advice.

I do not like getting advice from people that have not actually done the thing, whatever it is, and they haven't done it in some sort of relatively a time period that is in the last few years. I don't want advice from 20 years ago, okay? And I don't want advice from anybody who hasn't actually done it.

And the only advice I really like is very, very specific advice, you know, so, oh, I want to put on a virtual conference. Oh, don't do that. Those aren't good. That is not specific advice. That is garbage advice.

And so, like, for example, I got this advice about, oh, one of our upcoming events. I was talking to different people and I said, what do you. Here's the agenda for our event. There's a big virtual conference. What do you think?

And they said, no, what you need to do on your agenda, you need to give everybody a lunch break where everything pauses for an hour because people need to have lunch and then they'll come back. I was like, oh, okay. So this person, though, had never put on a virtual conference at all before. They just know they like to eat lunch.

And honestly, that's the worst advice. I didn't do it because what I've learned is that if I give an hour break in the middle of a virtual conference, nobody comes back, right?

But this dude had no experience and they could have hurt my business, okay? And I can't stand that kind of advice.

Now, on the flip side, I reached out to somebody that does a lot of, you know, webinars and virtual events and things like, what's something that you do? That's like a must do for you. They go, oh, you always want to have add to calendar in your emails after somebody registered.

So when they say thank you for registering, you put an add to calendar button in all of your emails to get it on their calendar. Because if you don't get on their calendar, we've learned that they're not going to show up. I was like, oh, that's really useful. You do this a lot.

You've tried this and when you didn't do it, it didn't work. But then you changed something and you did this. I go, this type of specific advice is exactly what I care about. So everybody has imposter syndrome.

I do. I don't. I think I'm a fraud at podcasting. I think I'm a fraud at doing events. I think I'm a fraud at everything. Not a fraud, but I think that I.

I don't know what I'm doing. Nobody knows what they're doing. Just go and try it and then you will get better.

I know this is a different kind of episode, but it just drives me, trust me, bananas. People are just holding themselves back. All right, before we get into.

Since you didn't ask, which is the crazy part of this podcast, I want you to know this podcast is presented by Marigold. Marigold is my email sending platform. I feel it through the radio. However, you're listening to this on your head. Earphones. Earphones. What are those?

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All right, let's get into. Since you didn't ask. Speaking of imposter syndrome and all this different type of stuff, and this is so bad. This whole thing is like a rant.

I don't know what's wrong with me. We need to stop. Everybody lies to each other. So a buddy of mine's wife started up this little clothing company and that's great.

I'm very supportive of everybody should go out there and do their thing or whatever. I don't know if this happens to you, but whenever somebody in, like your universe outside of like your work or whatever.

They start up a company of some kind. Some little company somebody else is selling, some sort of perfume thing. All these different little companies. What happens is we all lie.

So my buddy's wife starts this company where they're selling clothing to me. It's like. She's like, bedazzling clothing. I don't really understand it. Whatever. Hopefully they're not listening.

And then he's like, hey, dude, you got. Can you support this thing? Whatever. Can you buy? Or whatever. And I'm like, okay, fine. And then I see it online.

Everyone's like, oh, my God, way to go with your company. You're crushing it. And all the friends are buying the thing that she's selling, okay? And she now thinks, whoa, I got a business over here.

Because look at everybody buying this stuff. And they're telling me how great it is. Everyone's giving me this feedback. This is the greatest thing. Like, oh, my God, you're doing this.

Quality is so good. I'm going to tell all my friends. Everyone's full of it. All the friends are just buying the thing because they feel guilty, right?

You're like, I gotta buy the thing because she started it, and he's my buddy and what am I gonna do? And of course I'm say it's great. What am I gonna do? Say it's garbage. That's not cool.

And now she's running around thinking that she has a viable business that she's gonna pour money into and do whatever. We need to stop. We need to be honest, okay? Because I. I don't think we should just instantly just buy this stuff and tell everybody it's great.

What are we doing? I know that that's wrong. I know I'm a bad person. I know all of these things, but it's just like we're creating this. This fake stuff. Stop.

Who needs stuff bedazzled anyway? We got to stop bedazzling. I don't understand. You have a shirt and.

And then you put upon thingamabobs that look a little shiny, and now you charge more. It looks terrible. It just looks terrible. Enough. Enough with bedazzling. Anyway, I don't know what I'm talking about. Please leave this thing a review.

If it's at all useful, hit me up. Drop me a message@jschwedelson.com. let me know what you're thinking about the show. Let's partner. Let's do stuff. You are awesome.

Don't bedazzle anything later.

You did it. You made it to the end. Nice, but the party's not over.

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