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 anyway way. So take a breath, step in, and let's move forward together. Hello and welcome to the Sword of Shore podcast. My name is Samar Carbo, and recently I had a conversation with Brandon Mahoney. Now, Brandon and I have been friends for a long time, so you'll see that come out. But he has some great advice for people who are just experiencing imposter syndrome or self doubt, but particularly those who are in the sales and entrepreneurial spaces. But before we get there, if you have a story you'd like to share about imposter syndrome or self doubt, shoot me an email at sort of surepod Gmail.com. let's have a listen.

I'm Brenda Mahoney. I'm an individual who spent most of his life on the east coast, drove across the country during the very beginning of the pandemic to continue working with entrepreneurs to help launch and grow businesses. I think the biggest thing for me is I like working with people where I can share that it is a challenge. What you're experiencing is not unique to you. There are people out there that are experiencing these same things and there's a lot of people that can help. And so I like to share the challenges, the struggles, the failures, the many, many failures that I have gone through in life to help people realize that, like, you're not alone. There's people there to help. And I love sharing that and working with people. I would say my biggest passion is taking somebody who is like, hey, I'm not quite sure if I'm even capable of doing this and showing them that not only are they capable, but they're. They're more than capable of being, like, successful and just phenomenal at what it is they're trying to accomplish. I.

It's funny you mentioned that you wanted to help people understand that they're not alone, because that's essentially what I want to do with this podcast. My big rallying cry is like, no one was made in the lab. We all have our, our experiences that get us to the heights and, and always when people are living life from either perspective, we're seeing the highlight reel and we feel like we're living the blooper reel.

Yes, yes. The Biggest thing for me is, like, it was like, stop pretending. Like, I've got it all figured out. Stop pretending Like, I feel like I'm the best of the best of the best, and nothing shakes me, nothing breaks me, because that makes people so nervous. Be vulnerable. I mean, truly be vulnerable. Be open. Be honest. Like, it didn't. When I think about my career and, like, what I do now and I talk to people, I know damn well that there are people who I met early on in my career that if they heard about what I. What I've done and what I've accomplished, they wouldn't believe it for a second. Because they worked with me at a point where I was making mistakes. I was so horrible at what I do, but I just refused to give up. And I just. I just became. I got to where I'm at now. And oftentimes when I'm talking to people, I am meeting them at that point where they're trying to figure things out. And so it's easy for me to look back and go, okay, I made so many mistakes. If you compared you to where I was, you were doing so much better than you realize. Let me talk to you about the things that I did wrong and how I dealt with that. Because. Because they just want to feel like. I feel like most people just want to feel understood. Right. They want to feel like they're not alone. They want to feel like. Like they are there's someone out there that can understand and support. Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. And as we're kind of talking about it, I. I wonder what was.

And.

And I think I've gotten a glimpse of it with saying nutcase and things like that. What was the conversation that you would have with yourself back then?

Oh, wow, this is going to be. So. This is something that I've had in my head for a long time, and I'll share it for the first time ever here. The breaking point for me was. I remember being young and dealing with depression and saying to myself, why aren't I happy? And just asking myself that question over and over again. I should be happy. Like, if you put my life down on a piece of paper, so, oh, my God, you should be happy. But I wasn't happy. And I kept asking myself that question over and over again. Why am I not happy? How do I become happy? And. And then I reached a point where I realized that that was a very stupid question. The question I should be asking is, why am I not okay? Because I wasn't. I was so far from happy. I wasn't even okay. I was struggling so much. And once I started asking myself, like, why am I not okay? I realized I'm doing something very wrong here. I am on a path that is, that is wrong. All the things I think objectively should make a person happy are not making me happy. Pursuing my career, like, wanting to make a lot of money, being successful and people, I'm putting quotes here, being successful was not leading to happiness. And once I realized that, it took a while to, I mean, I'm still trying to figure out what is it that's going to make me truly happy. And so far what I have discovered is what makes me. The moments where I, like, I pat myself in the back, where I walk away with a smile is when I interact with somebody and I feel like I made a positive influence on their life. I made them feel cared for, I made them feel important. I made, I helped them in some way. That's what makes me feel great. When I'm like, okay, cool. And I can kind of flow back to when I was younger, realizing that I am dealing with things that other people deal with. I don't know how to solve it for myself, but I'm determined more than ever to solve it for somebody else than for myself. And that helped.

Oh man, that's great. And so do you still feel like that little kid who fit in but didn't wasn't able to achieve where he wanted to?

Oh, 100%. 100%. I mean, just in, in April, I made the decision that I was going to completely shift my career focus. And I'm still, I'm still figuring that out because over the last few years, while you could look at my, my career and you could say, wow, this guy is successful, like, he's done a lot of really amazing things and I'm proud of my career. Don't get me wrong, I'm not fulfilled, I'm not happy. And so I recognize I need to make a shift. And what that shift is, I'm still trying to figure out. I'm working on a few things, as you know, but I am absolutely still that person. Right. So, yeah.

So then, and, and again, I think you may have answered this sort of in a roundabout way, but directly, what do you do to combat that? Do you wake up in the morning at 4am and you do like the cold plunge in a bowl and whatever meme five to nine, before nine to five people.

That is a fantastic question. So I'm still in the, in the learning. So I may, I took the Same approach I take with organizations, right. The first thing I do with a company is when they come to me and they say, hey, we're struggling. Here are the challenges that we have. I listen to them and I say, these are great challenges. I'm happy to recognize them. Do you mind if I take a closer look to basically, you know, acknowledge those are the right challenges to, you know, let you know if these are right or not? And I run an audit and I find out what the real challenges are because you might say, hey, man, our big issue is we're not converting. It is a salesy talk. Hopefully people understand what I'm saying. We've got leads coming in, but we're not converting them. Our challenge is converting leads. Is it? Or is the challenge that you're not bringing in the right leads? But they don't want to hear that because from a marketing perspective, they're bringing in leads, they're hitting their KPI right. Their objective is solved, but we're not converting them on the sales side. So what I've done for myself is. Is kind of that same kind of audit. It's what are the challenges I think I'm facing that are making me. That are preventing me from feeling happy in fulfillment? And are those really the challenges? And am I. Am I going about them the right way? Right. And so I. I've taken time to sit back over the last few months. This has happened mid April to still today where I'm trying to be very introspective and I'm trying to question myself about why I do the things I do, why I think the way I think, and why I think that if I make this move or that move, it's going to provide me the happiness that everything else I've done is not. And try to really consider what is the right move. I do not have an answer for that now. I've been trying different things. One thing for me for sure was I'm always having to talk about this. I was in therapy for a long time. I felt like I was ready to be out of therapy. So I stopped on the recommendation of my therapist, was like, you seem like you're doing really good. Don't see me again.

But I was on a tough thing to hear also.

Right. I saw it coming out. It was one of those, like, evolutions of like, hey, man, you're doing well. Things are recommended. Seems like things are up and up. And they very much were. And they were like, hey, every time we get together, we just kind of like, chat. But it doesn't seem like anything's like, benefiting you. If you want to keep coming, you can, but I think you're good for now. And when you're ready, you can come back. And it was like, to me, therapy doesn't have to be a forever thing, but it should absolutely be something everyone does. I plan on going back at some point. I absolutely will. And the other thing for me was recently was I was on medication for the first time ever, and I took multi medication. And it was supposed to just keep me like, yay, I'm Brandon, I'm happy. And I made a decision also to step away from those because a lot of that medication to me put me in a mental mindset of. Of not being able to feel the lows I need to feel when I need to feel them. And there are times in life when it is. It is healthy to feel that. It is healthy to feel like I'm not okay. I need to work on things. It's just if it's a forever thing, absolutely not. But if something bad is happening and you mentally know, you objectively know that this is not right, but you don't feel it emotionally. That to me is like, I don't know about that because it's the same issue I had, but opposite. You know, prior it was, I objectively should be happy as as much as one can objectively decide happiness, but I was not happy. I had the opposite where I felt okay, but I objectively should not be feeling okay. So I decided to move away from the medication. And since I did that, like, I am back to working out. I'm back to going on runs in the morning. I am trying to be as healthy as I can be, which is something I fell off of. I used to big into fitness and health and. And luckily people can't see me right now, but I've definitely fallen off and I'm. I'm back on that pathway. There's never a moment where you should ever stop asking yourself, is this right for me? Is this the path I need to be on? How can I make an improvement? Self improvement to me is so important. It is the. I've learned so much more in life after leaving high school than I ever did while in high school, because I always want to be the best version of myself. And if you do make that decision for yourself, that's great. I do it because I have so many conversations with so many amazing people, and I want to be in a position where I could be the best version of myself for them to help them because selfishly I walk away from that feeling so good than I ever would if I did it for myself.

That's really well put. And in your sort of microcosm of life, um, if somebody wanted to also embark on entrepreneurship or just get to where you've gotten, but they're stuck, don't do it. Well, let's say they want to anyway and they're, they're stuck though in, in self doubt and imposter syndrome and all, all the things that keep us stuck. You know, this isn't an advice show, but this is a, this is how I did it show. What would you tell them?

If someone came to me, they wanted to launch a business but they're afraid to because they were unsure. I would tell them to think about what it is that they want to do and how many people it would benefit. And that's what you're, you're, you're preventing, you are, you're stopping people that are going to benefit. Like you came up with this idea for business. And I'm speaking to those individuals that have an idea that's going to make the world a better place. Not people who have an idea for a product or service are going to make them a ton of money. I don't, I don't deal with those individual, I don't deal with those kind of entrepreneurs. And I'll just say that flat out it's good people that I want to work with that want to make an actual difference in our society, in our world, in our day to day. If you have an idea for a business and you're afraid of doing it, but you know that your business will make a difference, it'll make the lives of those around you better. Every day that you don't pursue that, you're preventing them from having that, from that, that amazing thing, that amazing idea that you have. And I think I don't want to just say that and then be like, okay, bye. It is hard to find where to get that support. If you ask the average person, hey, how do you start a business? They have no idea, nor will they because there's not a lot of services out there. But just to answer your question, I would focus on the good behind your organization, the value and the beauty it will bring to society and keep thinking about that and realize that you are preventing people from having that by not pursuing it.

So awesome. I'm probably going to get the episode title out of that.

Press man speak. No.

Well, it's just two depressed guys talk. It's so refreshing to hear somebody. And, you know, this is part of why, you know, I know you were trepidatious on what you could offer, but it's so refreshing to hear somebody say, I'm not out of it right now, that I'm in it, and that you're going through it. And that's. That's where people are 90% of the time. They may be doing the thing for.

Somebody else, but they're still on their way. I've got. I have some incredible friends in my life, and one of the things that I learned recently was I was sharing about like a down month that I had recently, and they shared a little bit about how they felt in their. Their down. And you're like, oh, but it's nothing compared to what you know, like, no, no, no. You don't have to be at a specific level to feel like this is something you have to care about. I don't care where you're at. If you're anything less than feeling happy and fulfillment and like, fulfilled, that's something you should think about. It's something you should work on. Like, again, there's reasons to be upset. There's absolutely reasons. And it's important to acknowledge when it's okay to be upset and embrace that feeling and feel it. It's not. It's good to feel those things, but if you're every day feeling even just a little low, embrace it. You don't have to be at this super low point to. To think it's an issue if you're waking up and you're just like, come in. I don't really feel like getting out of bed. I'm a little tired. Like, whatever that is still something important to. To address. Right. So regardless of what point you're at, if you, if you're not living the life you want to live, you're not feeling the way you want to feel. Do something about it. You have to. You have to do something about it or find someone who can help you do something about it. That's all I can. And that's not all I could say, but it's what I will say the time that we have permitted.

Yeah.

And that.

That is so great. And I'm sure, you know, even. Even as a CIS white male, I think a lot of people will find that all very educational and that's.

That.

That's what we're doing here. I want people to understand that not only are the people who succeed not built in a lab, but they're not alone. They're just one person who happened to be in a situation, and then maybe they see themselves reflected. Maybe they see a completely different situation that your words helped with.

I. If I may, something I share that might give people some really good perspective is I. I've been very blessed in my career where I've worked with some, like, really high level CEOs, founders of organizations, VPs, directors, people that you would look at and you would think, man, they have it together. They know what they're doing. They are so good. Almost all of them, from my getting to know them, are in therapy. They've got the guidance from consultants. They're working with career officials that are giving them advice. They are getting so much help to make them function the way they function. And a lot of people do not know that. And so they'll look at somebody who is a CEO of a very successful business will think, oh, man, this person has it figured out. Like, like, they've got it all going on. It's like, no, they have embraced getting help and guidance. And it was a shock to me very early on when I started working with individuals and learning from them and seeing what they're going through. And so if there's individuals out there that are thinking like, oh, man, like, this person's got it going on, they're good. No, chances are they are getting, like, so much help on the side in the same way we all should. So.

Yeah, that's a really good point. And I read a statistic, and maybe it was a little skewed. You never know. But. But I heard that over 70% of Fortune 500 CEOs have a coach of.

I would. You know what? That sounds absolutely true. If not, that's low.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I. I've been consulting for a long time. I've been doing freelance work for a long time. The CEOs that I work with, obviously, they work with me because they need guidance. Right. And so that. That there alone is. I mean, there's. There's literally organizations right now that specifically work with CEO' Fortune 500 organizations that need that support. Those organizations wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the fact that there's a need for it.

Yeah. Oh, man, this has been such an awesome conversation. Thank you for coming on the podcast, Brandon. And there is one more thing, kind of a free for all. So, you know, if you. If we've touched on all the things you want to, great. But if there's anything else that you haven't gotten to share that you'd like to even if it's a plug, absolutely. We want to support you. You know, this is your chance. You got the floor. Share it now.

Oh, man. See, now that I wish I prepared for things, given the way the conversation has gone, I have nothing that I really want to plug or anything along those lines. But I will say that if you are somebody who has an idea for a business and you're looking to bring it to life and you're not sure about starting it, or if you're in a position where you want to do something else in your career and you're not sure about how going about making that happen, just take baby steps forward. Take baby steps forward. Make a list, make a plan. If you're unsure about things like I don't want to say reach out to me directly, you absolutely can. But I don't like the idea of plugging myself on your, on your podcast. But start making steps forward because the number of individuals over the last half a decade or more that I've worked with, individuals when they went from that point in their career to doing what they envisioned, that the joy, the happiness that I have, I've seen from them, don't hold yourself back from that. It is hard. It is not going to be easy. There's ups and downs. It is a struggle, but it is so worth it. I have not met a single entrepreneur ever, ever. 100% like not happens that has ever said to me, man, I regret launching this business. I regret pursuing this and making it happen. No, it's please do it like you are preventing happiness for not just for yourself, but for others. And so please, please do it.

Absolutely. And underscore all day long. Always, always do the thing.

Yes. Always do the thing. Always do the thing. Thank you so much for having me on here. This was a. This was really nice. It was really nice to talk, think about my and reflect on my own life and existence.

All right, you take care.

All right. Appreciate you.

What an awesome conversation. Brandon really brought it. I had a lot of fun there. I hope you did too. One quick thing I want to touch on. Brandon mentioned getting off of a medication. He did that with doctor's orders. And if you are going to follow in his footsteps, I encourage you to talk to your doctor before changing your prescription meds at all. That is for your safety and ours. Thanks for tuning in once again. If you have a story of imposter syndrome or self doubt, shoot me an email at sort of surepodmail.com I can't wait to hear from you later days.

Sam Sa.