Welcome to the Sword of Sure podcast. Where doubt looms, fear whispers, and the only way forward is through. I'm Samar Carbo, and if you've ever felt like you're just sort of sure about what you're doing, you're not alone. This is where we face the uncertainty. Push past the hesitation, and keep going anywhere way. So take a breath, step in, and let's move forward together.

Hello and welcome to the Sword of Shore podcast. In case you missed it in the intro, my name is Samar Carbo and I'm so glad you've decided to join me today on the Sort of Sure podcast. The beautiful thing about this, you know, sort of talkie series is I'm starting to kind of find my stride with this. I'm really having fun. It was really fun, but now it's, it's a little bit more and I'm starting to hear some feedback about it. And I think what we're going to do here is this is, this is going to be kind of a subscriber benefit, you know, so, so as, as these keep going and I think I'm gonna keep doing these, I like them, I'm gonna kind of stash them in, in the subscriber area and that way people who just find me aren't gonna stumble across one of these and think this is all I do. I like the interview stuff being my kind of mainstay. And then for people who already know me and want to hear more from me, you just go ahead and know, pop into that subscriber area and we'll go ahead and take care of it. That way you'll still be able to hear just me talk about topics that matter to me and hopefully to you as well. And, and then we can just kind of jam like that. But in order to fill those need, the guests. So if you have a story of imposter syndrome or self doubt and you'd like me to share it on the podcast or you'd like to be interviewed about it, shoot me an [email protected] that's sortofshorepodmail.com I look forward to hearing from you. So in this whole series I have been examining questions, questions that I ask myself, things that I have puzzled out with friends and just want to kind of explore a little bit over the airwaves here. And the one I'm thinking about lately is what if self doubt imposter syndrome. This whole thing isn't a problem, but more like a symptom or a signal. And you'll notice many, many people have mentioned to me in emails, in person, what have you, that I don't try and fix people on this podcast. That's not what I'm here for. If you want something fixed, I can absolutely help people do that. But that's not what this podcast is for. This podcast is for sharing stories of having instances of imposter syndrome and getting past them and how people do that. And so in these moments when I'm puzzling that out, I notice that we don't need to fix. There isn't necessarily a thing to fix. You, you'll. If you've been listening for a while, remember Will Ball from VI Agency talking about asking the right questions when self doubt creeps up or you have imposter syndrome there and and then to look for the proof to learn up until you can be somebody who you aspire to. But the fact is that self doubt in many people just never goes away. And that's totally okay. So let's say you're starting something new, the job project, even just a conversation, and you get the jitters. You start to get those physiological signs, self doubts creeping in. The voice shows up. It's not like a loud or dramatic thing, but it's just enough to make you question whether you're going to be competent at this. So then we wonder, is that like an evolutionary cheat code? Is that what made us what we are today? That that knowledge that there is a gap between our now and our future, or what we hope is our future? Is self doubt actually trying to stop us or is it trying to show us something? I don't think it's random is really what I'm saying. I think it appears at the edge of discomfort, which is where the growth exists, right? It doesn't appear at the edge of failure. I think when self doubt and imposter syndrome show up, we're thinking, I can do better, I can be better now. I don't think it's particularly helpful the way a lot of people pursue it and use it as a reason not to strive because it is an uncomfortable feeling. Everybody's felt it. I think. You know, I often say the statistic of 75% of people, not just CEOs, but yes, CEOs are the ones who say so have felt imposter syndrome sometime in their life that many people don't go after job advancements, opportunities because they come across this uncomfortable feeling. But think, think back the times when you doubted yourself right before something important. Could you have used that as momentum to Move your, your body or your mind further past this point of resistance and then into growth. Maybe, right? And that's, that's what it comes down to. It's a big old maybe. And there isn't anything that, that I have proof wise to show you that you absolutely have to. But I can try. So when I was on, oh, I believe I was 13 or 14, maybe even 15, I joined a skit group and it was led by a very passionate woman at my church who, you know, just wanted to have this singing, dancing, acting group of very talented young people. And a bunch of us answered the call. I think the group was somewhere around 10, something like that. And we did the thing. This is how my. Yeah, it was 16 because now I remember what, what I had to do. I was in front of a crowd of 5,000 people in an arena setup and these people were looking to me to talk to also act and sing and dance and hit my marks perfectly. And you can absolutely bet that self doubt showed up in those moments. It's a form of self protection, right? It's not just nervousness. Nervousness is I'm excited but I'm scared of the excitement, the exciting thing. But self doubt is more. I need to protect myself from failure, from fear, from the ma. The. The thing your brain is telling you is inevitable. Your brain tells you, don't mess this up. Or rather your brain tells you you can't do this instead of don't mess this up. Right? Because that's a much more constructive thing. Now obviously don't mess this up is not the best way to say it, but I can tell you that's exactly what my mom said when she met my wife. She said she's great, don't mess this up. And that was the same kind of thing, right? Your doubt, your self doubt is just your mind might be your mind asking for clarity and not just asking for permission to give up. Imagine if I had taken the opportunity to give up when I was afraid to get up in front of thousands of people. If my imposter syndrome had told me I don't belong there because what, what person. Very few people, I should say there. It's not that there's nobody, but very few people naturally have the feeling that I would love to get up in front of these people. But I do love it. Not every time, but sometimes I really, really love getting up in front of a crowd and showing them what I've been working on, what I'm excited to share with them. But very few people have had that Experience, right. It's. It's the number one public fear of speaking. People fear public speaking more than they fear death as speaking. As somebody who has never died for long but has given a few eulogies, I would definitely say I'd prefer the public speaking, but let's. I digress, right? I find that a lot of people who listen to this podcast are early career professionals. You know, nurses, doctors, you're starting out. I've seen a few firefighters once heard from a pilot. So like people who listen to this are in very crucial fields and you feel watched, you feel constantly evaluated and graded, inspected, all this oversight, right? From, from not just the people you interact with on a day to day basis, but by people who have given you your licen. By a government who doesn't care about you personally but cares about covering themselves. And these people have an issue and that issue is they are not allowed to voice when they feel like they don't belong in the room and in silence. I've said this a bunch of times on the podcast, but in silence, in the dark, these feelings only fester and grow and get way worse and way darker themselves. And so then I've got to ask how much of your self doubt really even belongs to you and how much of that was taught to you by environments that chose to measure every little thing? Environments that told you you don't belong. I have a guest and oh boy, I'm blanking on her name. I really should have looked this up ahead of time, but I had a guest who talked on this podcast about imposter syndrome being an appropriate response to a place that tells you you don't belong. It is your. Your. It's almost like an infection in, in your soul. And the immune response your body has is imposter syndrome. Self doubt. To turn it over to say, yeah, I don't belong here because people are telling me I don't belong here. Just like people at lunch counters in the 50s and 60s, we're told they don't belong. In the whites area you start to internalize other people's doubts, particularly if they're told to you on a regular basis. But we're not just talking about those sorts of performance based professions. We're also talking about school systems, we're talking about workplaces where there is so much pressure. We're talking about families and how they've given so much effort to making you feel like there's more that's expected of you. Sometimes it's friend groups. There's this social comparison that we constantly Have. But there's more, right? Because self doubt isn't just about your abilities. Self doubt is about you. Imposter syndrome is about your personhood. It's not I'm unsure, even though sort of sure is the name of the podcast. It's I am a problem. It's I as a person am not worthy of entering into this space. And every single person I talk to that. That suffers from imposter syndrome. And self doubt deals with this one shift. Why? When did the uncertainty in a moment turn into a statement? The syndrome that calls this a statement about who you are, it has nothing. The two have nothing to do with each other. But then we have to ask that follow up. What would happen if we separated the feeling of not feeling worthy or not feeling like you belong from the identity of who you are as a person? Well, that's really what this is all about. That's how. How we turn this growing societal problem, this stigma, into a chance for growth, because we need to separate it. That's what this whole journey is about. And I love hearing stories of people who come on this podcast and say, I experienced this.

Right.

We recently had Carolyn on, who works at Walmart and had a very specific example of somebody coming up to her and saying, you can't be the manager, you're a woman. And then being forced to go through it. And that kind of thing is what I like to call positive pressure. I know, right? A very negative experience. But it's pressure in a situation that helps us grow. And it may be uncomfortable. It's going to be uncomfortable. It is occasionally the worst, but it helps us become who we're going to be. I want you to consider, I invite you to consider the idea that people who doubt themselves are the ones who care more. The ones who try harder and perform better. Not because they're insecure, but because they care. Because they are so conscientious that they cannot let a moment pass without thinking, can I do this better? People who are present. So maybe self doubt isn't the opposite of confidence, right? Maybe it's what makes confidence honest. What it. It forces confidence to explain itself. It pulls confidence into the back alley of our minds and takes it to task so that it's not a liar when we walk into the room. When that surgeon, who wasn't sure if he belonged there or she belonged there in that operating theater, used self doubt as a reason to study more, used it to become the best version of themselves. And I've seen teachers use self doubt to become the best he can see it. He can see which ones really, really care. I'm not sure if he's still around, but when I was in oh boy, had him both seventh and eighth grade, I had a teacher, Mr. Levullo. Man, I have tried to find this guy, but I saw it when I was a kid and when I got to high school and I came back to visit and things like that, I saw it in his eyes. Mr. Lovullo wore confidence like a like a cardigan sweater. He put it on and he used it to keep himself warm. He was the English teacher from hell for some people. But for me, he was the reason I write today. And he was the man that I aspired to be for a very long time. But I saw it when he spoke to his colleagues when the principal was in there. I saw the self doubt and I admired him all the more for it. And so I ask you what might change for you if you stopped trying to silence your doubt and started just listening to it? You might find yourself a little bit different at the end of 2025, going into 2026 if we do this work. Man do I love thinking about this kind of stuff. Well, thank you so much for stopping in and listening to the sort of share podcast. I am so excited to bring next week's to you. But for now I want you to consider if you have a story of self doubt or imposter syndrome and you want me to share it on the POD or you want to be interviewed about it, go ahead and shoot me an [email protected] later days.