In this investing episode, Daphne Dickopf, Founder and Owner of Change Matters Coaching LLC, shares shares tools to overcome imposter syndrome. If you struggle with feeling out of depth as a startup founder, you won't want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why imposter feelings signal growth in stage 2

- How to reframe imposter as an ally for progress

- What daily practices build authentic confidence

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 2 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Daphne Dickopf owns a consulting, coaching, and training company and is an ICF-certified executive coach, facilitator, and trainer, specializing in individual, team, and organizational development. Her background in international project management and her own leadership experience underpin her belief in every person's innate ability to find the best solutions and chart their path. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Marketing from the Regents Business School in London, United Kingdom, and a dual Master of Business Administration from ESSEC Business School in Paris, France, and the Mannheim Business School in Germany.

Want to learn more about Daphne Dickopf's work at Change Matters Coaching LLC? Check out her company website at https://www.change-matters.com/ and her personal website at https://www.daphnedickopf.com/ and get a copy of her book at https://www.amazon.com/Make-Friends-Your-Impostor-Superpower-ebook/dp/B0DZ6H1QPX/ref=sr_1_1

Mentioned in this episode:

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Founder's Quiz

Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again

to the start, scale and succeed. Podcast, the only podcast that

grows with you through all seven stages of your journey. As a

founder and I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer, and we have an

unbelievably powerful episode in store for you here today,

because there's only one problem that, when I think about it.

Every single one of my clients has to deal with, or at least

has had to deal with, at some stage in their career. It's not

a lack of profitability, it's not hiring. It's not even,

somewhat ironically, trying to figure out what stage they're in

and what to do about it. No, the only problem that I've seen

affect every single one of my clients, regardless of their

degree of success is the feeling of being an imposter in someone

else's world. And nowhere is this more true and more

debilitating in our journey as founders than in that stage two

mode, when we're there, launching out as a startup

entrepreneur and inevitably, invariably finding ourself way

out of our depth, and it's particularly problematic because

it feels like you're completely alone. It feels like I must be

the only one who feels this way. I must be crazy, because

everybody else has got it figured out, and that's simply

not the case. There's not something wrong with you. It's

just a skill and a I can't use the word. We'll get to that in a

moment. But this is something that we can solve, and here to

help us solve for it, to set things straight and help us to

make friends with our imposter is Daphne Dickopf, who owns a

consulting, coaching and training company and is an ICF

certified executive coach, facilitator and trainer. She

specializes in individual, team and organizational development.

Her background in international project management and her own

leadership experience underpin her belief in every person's

innate ability to find the best solutions and chart their path.

She holds a bachelor's degree in international marketing from the

regents business school in London, and a dual Masters in

Business Administration from ESSEC business school in Paris,

France, and the Mannheim business school in Germany.

She's also the author of the brand new book make friends with

your imposter, which, to my knowledge, is the most

comprehensive guide to overcoming the imposter cycle

and setting yourself free to do your best work. Well, Daphne,

welcome to the show. Very excited to have you here. First

question right out of the gate. It jumped off the page at me as

I was reading through your book, and has haunted me ever since,

because there's a phrase that you don't like that I use all

the time, or, let's say, used all the time. So the phrase is

imposter syndrome. What's wrong with that phrase and what's a

better way for us to think about it?

Well, thanks for having me, Scott and the lovely

introduction. I just don't like the phrase because it just

suggests it's something medical. It's a diagnosis that we cannot

get rid of, and it was just coined that way, and it's

actually not something medical. That's why I like to call it the

imposter phenomenon, or the imposter feelings, or the

imposter journey, or the imposter experience, because

it's something very subjective, and it's not objectively that

there's something wrong with us. So yeah, instead of saying, you

know, you have a syndrome and something is wrong with you,

it's something that many of us deal with. As you just said,

most entrepreneurs at many stages of their of their cycle,

probably, and so yeah, let's not call it a syndrome when it's

not.

Yeah. So there's a common misperception,

and I think it may even you know better than me, but it may stem

from some of the early research that this is something that

affects women a lot more than men. But from my understanding,

that's not true. Is this something that affects all of

us?

It does. I mean, the original research that was

done by Dr Pauline rose clans was focusing on a group of women

in academia. But ever since then, and I've coached tons of

executive men who come with this, they might not call it

initially imposter, but they might call it self doubts. They

might say, I don't feel so 100% sure this time, right? And so

yes, it in research. Now we know it's probably about even.

There's some groups minorities that feel a little bit more

strongly than others, but you could probably, pretty much say

it happens to everyone at least once in their life. I think

we're, we're about to 80 to 89% of us have it at least once in

our lives.

Well, well, I know it's certainly something

that I've struggled with at various stages through my

journey as a founder. But one of the things that struck me,

especially as a coach now and being invited into other folks'

stories, is to some extent, how differently it shows up for

different people. So. So you mentioned this. Some folks may

not even think to call it imposter syndrome, or may not

even know what imposter syndrome is or imposter phenomenon. See,

I did it again. But so just in a nutshell, what are we looking

for? What's it look like when it shows up in our world,

particularly for entrepreneurs and founders?

Yeah, I love that you're bringing this to

this. You know, it's a spectrum, almost, right? You. There are

people who just have very unrealistic, high targets and

expectations of themselves, so they can never 100% deliver on

those expectations. Then there's others who just, I always want

to learn more, and then they know I'm never going to be the

expert, because there's always nor more to learn. Some who

think they have to go it all alone, right? Unless you can do

everything all the time by yourself, you're not good

enough. And then there's the expectation sometimes also just

be superhuman, like you got to do it. You always need to handle

it. You can never show a vulnerability. You can never

suffer, and you can never once just not do it right. And so

sometimes it's not not being good enough. Sometimes it's

always going the extra mile somewhere. Sometimes it's always

being clever, more clever and more intelligent than others.

Sometimes it's being the expert in everything and doing it all

alone. And so it shows up in different variants from people.

It's so easy, especially with that

explanation, to see why it plays such a big role in our

entrepreneurial journey. Because, again, if you're a

solopreneur, if you're you're starting something out, so much

of it rides on you. It can feel like you have to be superhuman

you you literally have to do everything within the context of

your business. That's not actually true, but it feels that

way. And the other place that I've found it show up is kind of

in in the early phase of each of our stages. So there's some kind

of big shift. We enter a new stage. It needs new skills.

We're working with new people, and for some reason, it just

pops up again. Why is that?

Yeah, it's and there's actually, we call them

mechanisms, coping mechanisms, that help the imposter survive,

and us being small. And it's things like, you know,

procrastinating, like not not starting when you're doing

something new, like you gotta, as you said, you have new

skills. And then that's where it's daunting. Whenever we get

to a point where it's not so familiar, it's not common ground

anymore, it's not easy, but it gets a bit difficult. That's

when the imposter voices show up and drive you nuts.

Yeah, and it's when you can least afford it,

like when you need the most confidence to take that next

step, it seems to be where it jumps up the most. So there were

a couple of areas in the book that I found were really, really

helpful for me in understanding what's going on. Like, what does

this look like, structurally? And so there were, I believe,

what you called foundational blocks to break the cycle, and

the first one was the trigger. What's going on with the

trigger? What are some common triggers for entrepreneurs or

founders just starting out?

Yeah, so, so triggers are, whenever we hear

it or see it, we go into, Oh, I'm not good enough, or I need

to do more. I'm not the expert yet. And with many

entrepreneurs, I see that they see someone else on social media

or on a conference who's presented differently and

presented maybe as if they are already a big shot or have made

it, and immediately the mind goes, Oh, I'm not there yet. I'm

not as famous as that person. I have not that many clients lined

up. I cannot do it. I will not succeed as an entrepreneur.

Yeah, that's a common one.

Yeah, it's it's fascinating, because I'm

not a huge social media person. I'm actually a certified social

media dinosaur, but I did find myself. I found it was

particularly destructive in that stage for me, where I was seeing

folks who were further down the road. It's like, that's just not

even remotely helpful comparison. And I'm not prone to

comparison, but I found myself doing it all the time in that

stage. And so what do we do when we feel that, when we see that,

when it just kind of cuts us to the core, how do we start to

turn the cycle around?

Basically, first thing is really to become aware,

right? Notice when you have those triggers, become aware.

Hey, this is what's going on. I've had this before. This looks

similar to what I've seen before. And then learn to

intervene. That might be an example of social media. Just

don't follow these people. Follow people who give you more

positive lives. It might be with a self talk. Oh, self talk is

happening again. I don't feel worth it. Let me take a break.

Do something that gives me powerful energy. Can be anything

from. Music, doing jumping jacks, whatever gets you that

all right, I got this, talking to a friend, you know, talking

with your mentor, and then to actually change the path of your

normal behavior. Of the trigger is here. That's what I usually

go to, and that's when I go into my downward cycle of, oh, I'm

not there. I have these imposter feelings to No, no, I can turn

this around. I know that's what growth is, right? It's where

growth happens. When it gets uncomfortable.

How important, or maybe even just helpful, is

it to bring somebody else into that cycle, to share with a

friend or a mentor or a coach?

Yeah, immensely. So in my book, I sort of lay out

the imposter strategy framework, which has four quadrants, and

one of the quadrants is your support network. And that can be

mentors. It can be an accountability partner. It can

be just friends that you're sharing things with. Once you

talk about it. You sort of take the fear and the power out of

it. It's like, oh, and people will most definitely tell you,

Oh yeah, I've been there. Oh yeah, I've seen that. And you're

like, Wow, I'm not the only one. This is weird. They understand

this. I thought I was the odd one out.

Yeah, it's it's really cool, because I owe

a significant amount of my sec and my success. And I won't tell

him this, because it would give him a big head, but I think it

was episode four, somewhere in the first couple episodes, I had

my coach on. His name's Robert Mallon. And the thing that I

love about Robert, and the thing that he did that really carried

me through those early days was he believed in me more than I

believed in me. And so even though we didn't meet every day

or something like that, when we did meet, there was this I just

knew that I'd come out of it feeling more confident than I

went in. And it was, it was so helpful, because he did for me

what I couldn't do for me in that stage. And I owe him a huge

gratitude for that.

That's amazing, and I see that often, when

others believe in you and they can see it, because you cannot

see it, you're not going to believe it. But once you turn it

around and say, All right, they see it. Let me just write their

confidence, that wave of confidence for a while, until I

can see it myself, and I can feel as confident, hugely

powerful.

Yeah, it's worth pursuing if you don't have

it, and I don't, maybe everyone can have it. Maybe everyone

can't, I don't know, but one of the things that I do know is

there's a lot of voices who are not building you up at this

stage, right, and for all kinds of different reasons. And I

would say most of them probably just because they care about

you, like, starting your own enterprise has, like, just

almost guaranteed to fail, right? Like, it's just the odds

are so bad that anyone who loves you rightfully should try and

talk you out of it, but that can blend into looking like they

don't believe in you, or feeling like they don't believe in you,

and so having that person in your corner, who's you, who has

a bigger view of you than you do, I think, is a huge, a huge

help. So that's one of these four quadrants support, and

that's just one example of support. What are these other

quadrants we can use to make friends with our imposter?

Yeah. So I, you know, I came up with that matrix

because, as a ex management consultant, I love matrices, and

I just realized, with all the research I did and all the

clients work that I've done, there is something about the

long term and short term focus of imposter phenomenon. There's

things that you have to do right now and here, because it's

actually happening and it's impacting you. You're feeling it

now. And there's some long term things where you just, you've

got to be prepared. And then there's also things that you've

got to do internally with you, for you. And there's things

like, as we said, it's a support network externally. So let's, I

was just going to say, we have short, short term focus internal

on me. Those are first eight problems, solutions. I mean,

where you're like, You snap out of it because you do, like a

breather or because you're just fact checking, right? There's

things you do internally for yourself, and you know it's

going to work within the seconds, yeah. And there's

things internally that you do that are working long term.

That's what I call resilience. You're just setting yourself up

for example, you're keeping a list of all your failures, of

all your learnings from the failures, your journaling about

how the successes that you had. You know what path you went on

for them, or what kind of compliments you've gotten. And

you just make a depository of things that can help you in

times of doubt. And in the same way, in the the external

version, you need the support network, short term friends,

family members, accountability partner, mentors. You can call

coaches that you can call you can have. And tell you what,

what you're supposed to do when you're not feeling good. But you

also got to have this long term, what I call vision. You got to

have tools, goals in place, where you know, hey, that's

where I want to go. This is why I'm doing this. This is my why.

These are it's my long term learning. Of course, they're

going to be setbacks, and when you know that it's so much

easier that everything else falls in place.

Yeah. Daphne, there's a question that I ask

come I guess I'm very interested to see what you would have to

say. And the question is this, what would you say is the

biggest secret that you wish wasn't a secret at all? What's

that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening

today knew?

Yeah, almost everybody feels like they're an

imposter at times, and most people think they're the only

one.

Yeah, yeah. There is in your book, I think,

something like 40 different tools that folks can use to over

overcome this cycle in their life. Where can folks find the

book? Where can they find more about the work that you do?

Yeah, make friends with your imposter. Is

basically available on all common bookshops in this world.

But you can also find the link to it or more information on my

website, which is www Daphne. That is D, A, P, H, N, E,

Dickopf, D, I, C, K, O, P, f.com, and I have the links

there as well, but yes, it's available in all known bookshops

in this world.

Excellent, fantastic. Well, I highly

recommend it for anyone listening who's felt the pain of

and sometimes debilitating pain of the imposter cycle. And it's

a tremendous resource that you can start to implement

immediately, super practical. I was really practical. I was

really impressed by that, and highly recommend it. Well.

Daphne, thanks for being on the show. It was really a privilege

and honor having you here with us today. And for those of you,

yes, for those of you watching and listening, you know your

time and attention mean the world to us, I hope you got as

much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait

to see you next time take care.