Small Business Talk
The Podcast to Grow your Business Faster
How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome in Your Everyday Life and Business With Sheila Buswell
Show Notes
Background
Sheila Buswell is the CEO of Buswell Biomedical and a disabled Veteran who suffers from mobility issues every day. She developed the concept for the Upward Mobility in 2018 and started Buswell Biomedical with her husband, Gregg, in 2019. Sheila ran two marathons and more sprint triathlons than she can remember—and when she could not run, she did yoga. She was diagnosed with Hereditary Spastic Paraparesis in 2020 and started weight training. She loves to camp, and has traveled the country with her husband, Gregg and her dog, Penne.
Necessity is the Mother of Invention
Sheila joined the military, US Army was stationed in Bosnia and injured her foot that resulted to a medical discharge in 2001. She got a mechanical engineering degree in 2005 and a masters in engineering in. In 2018, her mom fell and broke her hip and she saw a lot of the issues her mom face that is quite similar with what she experienced with she hurt her foot in Bosnia. To solve those, she invented a product and built a small business around it. Well, it’s a small business now but it’s a technology startup built around artificial intelligence, machine learning, and sensors to control a device She hopes it will be a solution to a problem and that everybody uses it as a solution.
Imposter Syndrome
Imposter syndrome is the feeling you get when you feel that you’re just not enough, so it’s self-doubt but in certain roles, that self-doubt can hinder your professional growth and experience. You feel like you don’t belong where you are and it affects people in a myriad of different ways. It can last an instant or it can last a breath of years and most people experience this over their career.
It’s something that affects people differently, so there’s not a one way to explain it but generally speaking, it feels just like that.
Imposter syndrome influences people in more areas than you can think of. For example, if you are working in a man filled industry, you’ll be told that you are too feminine. You might not be feminine at all but when you are around other women, you don’t feel feminine enough. So, there’s a lot of ways Imposter syndrome can affect people.
The feeling of not being enough can affects everybody in a myriad of ways and it’s professionally more measurable but there’s people, like people feel it in sports, people feel it, in you know, different ways.
How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome?
Having imposter syndrome can make you feel uncomfortable, it can make you believe you don’t belong there and it can definitely affect your daily activities. So, how can you possibly overcome imposter syndrome? Here are 5 tips for you.
1.Remember Your Past Achievements. Remember the things that you have achieved in the past. In doing so, you will have an easy time convincing yourself in a more positive way instead of I don’t belong here.
2.Stop Comparing Yourself. Comparing yourself as a way to motivate yourself is not helpful at all. Comparing your reality with somebody’s highlight reel on social media is not fair at all. Stop comparing your Chapter 1 to their Chapter 20.
3.Practice Self-Grace. Do not accept low quality results or and say, “okay, that’s fine” but say there’s a reason why I’m here and not there and assess where that is and what would it would take to get you there, whether I’m willing to do that or not. You can’t beat yourself for the things that you can’t change but do not give up without even trying. For example, you don’t become an engineer not because you are scared of Math but because you conquered Math by working very hard. So always do your best. Sometimes, 80% is better than not done at all so done is better than perfect on a lot of occasions.
4.Mindful Thinking. Don’t go down a negative spiral and if you are down a negative spiral that’s okay but catch yourself. If you are having a hard time doing this, the example of remembering your past achievements will help a lot. Before you like go down that or when you’re down, that negative be like okay you gotta pick yourself up but remembering to pick yourself up by remembering your past achievements it’ll take longer but it will help. You can also try remembering whatever compliment is said your way. It will make you feel better.
5.Put Things In Perspective. Ask yourself if this will matter in a year. If you get mad at a certain thing, will it matter in 10 minutes? If they don’t, they definitely wont matter in a year. Sitting in the wrong meeting once will not matter but 7 years of sitting in the wrong meetings, choosing the wrong career might matter.
Links
Contacts
How to Overcome Imposter Syndrome in Your Everyday Life and Business With Sheila Buswell
If you are struggling with anything, there are lots of services that you can reach out to, so please do, Don’t suffer alone because you definitely don’t have to and these days we can all bring our oneself to work, we don’t have to separate our business from our personal, from our home life self so make sure that you are turning up authentically and allowing your people to turn up authentically.
Listen to the full episode of Small Business Talk episode 216.
You can also find the video versions of the Small Business Talk Episodes on YouTube.
