Ever felt like that? Like you’re going to be caught out?
Apparently for stand up comedians, their biggest fear is telling a joke, no one laughs and then someone stands up and points to them on stage, saying “You’re not really that funny are you?”
Being caught out and labeled a fraud or scammer or imposter is perhaps the most common fear I see as a marketer.
Especially for you guys, I see a lot of you suffering this.
Last year I went to a YouTube mastermind thing, which YouTube hosted.
Before the event, they opened a WhatsApp group and we all started talking to each other, sharing our channels and telling each other what we did.
It was like I had accidentally been invited to the wrong group.
These guys had hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of subscribers.
At the time, I had under 30,000.
The problems they brought to the table were things like “my studio team is getting too large” and “Meta want to sponsor me but they’re not paying enough”.
I honestly withheld my channel and link because I didn’t want to get caught out.
I didn’t want someone to see my channel and say “You’re supposed to be a marketing channel? How come my channel about blankets has more subscribers than you?”
I didn’t tell anyone what my channel was, or the size, until we got to the event.
And only then, after meeting lots of other channels, did I see just how foolish I was.
There were channels with WAY fewer subscribers than me. Who were very proud (and rightly so) of their numbers.
It occurred to me that imposter syndrome is really just a comparison problem.
I was comparing where I am, to where other people are.
And I also learned that no one who’s ever accomplished anything of note or worth, will ever call you a fraud, for they know how much hard work it takes to get there and they’re probably assuming you think the same about them.
