Impostor Syndrome

Impostor Syndrome is real.
We're chatting about Jeremy's recent blog post Seven Ways to Deal With Impostor Syndrome, and sharing our own journeys feeling like impostors. 
Jeremy describes the five types of impostor: 

1. Perfectionist
2. Expert
3. Natural Genius
4. Soloist
5. Superman/woman

Discover which ones we are (and which ones we think each other might be).  
And we go into more detail about the seven Impostor Buster techniques that we've used to deal with Impostor Syndrome, and how we help our singing teacher clients to deal with their own impostor syndrome: 

• Dealing with the loneliness
• Working with criticism
• Getting guidance
• Validating feelings
• Teaching someone else
• Discovering your FOAL area
• How good is good?

The original article from Jeremy https://vocalprocess.co.uk/7-ways-to-deal-with-imposter-syndrome/

Gillyanne's live on "Don't be in the dark, there are no silly questions"
https://www.instagram.com/p/CThc5xHIrCY/

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith's podcast "A Voice And Beyond" https://drmarisaleenaismith.com/podcast/

The Vocal Process Learning Lounge, where you can access over 500 videos and downloadable resources instantly, including the full recordings of the day-courses "Mastering Musical Theatre" and "Best Practice Update". Watch how we tackle questions and challenges from the audience on vocal and performance techniques!
https://vocal-process-hub.teachable.com/p/the-vocal-technique-learning-lounge

Share your thoughts on this podcast and ask us anything on https://speakpipe.com/Vocalprocess 

Transcript

Announcer: 0:11

This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher

Jeremy : 0:22

Hello and welcome to this voice podcast, oh! Series three episode one with Jeremy Fisher

Gillyanne Kayes: 0:28

and Dr. Gillyanne Kayes

Jeremy : 0:31

nd the topic today is imposter syndrome. I wrote an article a few weeks ago on seven strategies to deal with imposter syndrome and Gillyanne you looked up the meaning of the word imposter, what did you find?

Gillyanne Kayes: 0:43

Oh, yes, I went onto Google. And this is the Cambridge online dictionary. imposter, a person who pretends to be someone else in order to deceive others. Now, what's interesting about this is that they give an example of using the word within a sentence. And here's what they say. He felt like an imposter among all those intelligent people, as if he had no right to be there.

Jeremy : 1:10

But that's weird. That's not actually the meaning of imposter. The meaning of imposter if you like, Is that also the difference between an active and a passive? So an active imposter is somebody who knows perfectly well that they are deceiving people.

Gillyanne Kayes: 1:22

Yes. Let's have a look at some of the related words and phrases faking and pretending an idiom a wolf in sheep's clothing. air guitar apparently appears here. Faker. False. Mountebank?

Jeremy : 1:41

I love a mountebank.

Gillyanne Kayes: 1:43

Isn't that interesting, but I mean,

Jeremy : 1:45

it isn't in a way we get the The meaning is is intending to deceive. But imposter syndrome is not that

Gillyanne Kayes: 1:53

it's something that's very different. And one of the reasons why you wrote the blog in the first place is because we work with a lot of teachers nowadays, training teachers on professional development. And what we found is that they often within the community setting when we're all chatting, they talk about feeling like an imposter.

Jeremy : 2:14

It's one of the things that comes up the most in the courses for people when they come on the course in the first place. And we asked them why they're there. And imposter syndrome seems to be a really big thing in the singing community, the teaching community, the voice community in general. So what we thought we do is we take the article that I wrote and expand on it a bit. And in fact, we have seven imposter busters that you can do actions that you can take

Gillyanne Kayes: 2:39

imposter buster.

Jeremy : 2:40

Yes.

Gillyanne Kayes: 2:41

Could we we really could make a tongue twister out of that couldn't we? Do you know what I liked about this article, because what I'd quite like to do is interview you about it and would kind of riff around it. Which is that you talk about the fundamental issue for people who have imposter syndrome is that they're not able to internalise their own success. They think it's something to do with luck. And nothing to do with their abilities. And I think that is such a great point. And it's something that we come across all the time in our trainings

Jeremy : 3:18

Very much

Gillyanne Kayes: 3:18

That people we work with, actually don't realise the things that they're good at. Yeah. And we'll talk more about that later.

Jeremy : 3:25

Work this, there's two things I mean, one is they don't realise the things they're good at. And the second is they don't accept the things that they're good at. It must be luck. It must be coincidence. It must be somebody else did the work. You know, it's just there's so many things in imposter, imposter syndrome that people just don't realise. So, there's two sets of bits of information that I put in there in the blog and I want to talk about both of them. One is the seven imposter busters that you can do. And the second set is this. And by the way, I should I should say, imposter syndrome or imposter phenomenon is a real thing. It was identified in 1978 by Pauline Rose Crance and Suzanne Imes in their paper the imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: dynamics and therapeutic inventions. And what they're saying is anybody can get it.

Gillyanne Kayes: 4:13

Did you mean interventions?

Jeremy : 4:15

Intervention interventions I did. So I say that again. The imposter phenomenon in high achieving

women: 4:20

dynamics and therapeutic interventions. What the saying is, anyone can get it, but it's usually people who are highly responsible. So ironically, it's the people who are least likely to intentionally defraud who get imposter syndrome.

Gillyanne Kayes: 4:36

In other words, if you think that you're an imposter,

Jeremy : 4:41

it's likely that you're not

Gillyanne Kayes: 4:42

absolutely certain you won't be because the real imposters never think about that.

Jeremy : 4:48

and don't care. So the other thing is Valerie young, based working with the information that Clance and Imes created wrote a book called The Secret thoughts of successful women. And she lists five different types of imposter that and it was really fascinating reading this,

Gillyanne Kayes: 5:10

I thought this was very interesting. And I recognise myself. And you in them.

Jeremy : 5:15

Yes, I actually recognise bits of three of them in me.

Gillyanne Kayes: 5:18

Okay, cool.

Jeremy : 5:19

Okay, reveal, we've both had imposter syndrome

Gillyanne Kayes: 5:22

Definitely

Jeremy : 5:23

Really quite strongly. So this really, it really resonated with us. So I'm going to go with the five types. First, I really like these, Perfectionist - sets extremely high expectations for themselves. And even if they meet 99% of the goals, they're going to feel like failures, any small mistake will make them question their own competence. So accurate. It's so interesting when you set yourself such a high goal. And again, in a way, this is about responsibility, because you want to do a good job. When you set yourself that high a goal, the 1% that you didn't quite hit becomes the most important thing you think about.

Gillyanne Kayes: 6:01

That's the thing, that's the thing you focus on, I have to say that that was one of the things that I had performance anxiety about in my years as a performing singer, the one thing I would focus on was the mistake that I'd made.

Jeremy : 6:16

And therefore the 99% of the really good stuff just didn't occur to you.

Gillyanne Kayes: 6:20

And if you watch successful performers and their habits, they don't do that. Not that they don't care about that one mistake, but they don't do that.

Jeremy : 6:28

That you actually acknowledge and accept what you did well. First, and funnily enough, it's one of the things that we teach our teachers, which is when you are diagnosing somebody, when you have a student who walks in the room, and you're hearing them for the first time. So often we go to that's wrong, and that's wrong. And that's wrong. And that's wrong. And that's, that's wrong, and I need to sort out that because that just doesn't work. And and you don't go what's working, what's actually already working? What what are they already doing, that's good,

Gillyanne Kayes: 6:55

validate what's working. Okay, now let's talk about the expert syndrome.

Jeremy : 7:01

The expert feels the need to know every piece of information before they start a project and constantly look for new certifications or trainings to improve their skills. They won't apply for a job if they don't meet all the criteria in the posting. And they might be hesitant to ask a question in class, or speak up in a meeting at work because they're afraid of looking stupid if they don't already know the answer.

Gillyanne Kayes: 7:24

That's an interesting one, because I recognise bits of myself in that, you know, I am Mrs Over-Prepare, I do feel the need to get all the information there before I want to go on air, for instance, I've highlighted all all sorts of bits in this lovely article, actually. And it's very much before I write, I want to gather everything. And then sometimes I'll kind of keep it to myself, which drives the other half mad by the way.

Jeremy : 7:53

I'll say

Gillyanne Kayes: 7:55

Because I want to have that sort of control over it. On the other hand, I'm not afraid to ask questions or speak up at meetings,

Jeremy : 8:03

I'm going to go right back to being 17. I was doing A levels at 17. And I was doing we had a thing, which was to do A level Spanish from zero to a level in two years. So you did O level in one year, and then A level in the second year. And this expert thing really applied to me because they'd go around the room and we'd all be speaking in Spanish. And I would count the sentences and work out which sentence was going to be mine when we came around. And then I do it flawlessly. And I would have absolutely no idea what anything else was doing. And of course, I mean, I did actually manage to pass the A level. But I got an E, which was a real surprise, because everybody because it was so good in the classroom, everybody was expecting me to get an A. But it was because I just was not really that interested in the process. I felt I had to get everything right. Not a good look.

Gillyanne Kayes: 8:55

That's fascinating. Okay, so I...

Jeremy : 8:58

Oh and also also there's a little bit which is being afraid to ask a question in class in order that because you believe that you should always look as if you know, everything. And therefore you don't have to ask the question

Gillyanne Kayes: 9:11

I actually did a live about this yesterday didn't tie on Facebook and Instagram. It was "Don't be in the Dark, there are no silly questions", because that's something that also comes back on feedback from our courses that, you know, a lot of people say, oh, there are no silly questions. But actually, when you open your mouth on course, you get a little bit of a glare

Jeremy : 9:31

You're shot down

Gillyanne Kayes: 9:32

or you feel that you're put down or that you're shut down. And actually by asking questions, that's how we learn, isn't it?

Jeremy : 9:40

Well, it's not it's not only how we learn, but actually as the teacher when somebody asked the question of the teacher, it's how the teacher understands where you are and where you're coming from, and can actually help more actively. And we do say at the very beginning of every course, there are no stupid questions, but there really aren't. And anybody who asked question shows us what it is that they want to know. And I mean, it's brilliant.

Gillyanne Kayes: 10:03

I know this is slightly off at a tangent, but one of the things that we found working by zoom, so working online with our trainings is that people feel that little degree of safety in using the comment box to ask their questions, as somehow it just buffers them a little bit. And it's really interesting what comes up because nearly always, when someone asks a question, and they might even preface it with, is this a stupid question, or I feel a bit silly asking this, they will not be the only person

Jeremy : 10:35

in the room wanting to ask questions. Absolutely.

Gillyanne Kayes: 10:37

So therefore, everybody learns from your questions.

Jeremy : 10:39

Absolutely.

Gillyanne Kayes: 10:40

All right. Now I'm going on to natural genius because Jeremy, I have identified you as the natural genius syndrome. Tell us about it.

Jeremy : 10:49

Absolutely. Right. Okay, I'm going to say what I wrote, when the natural genius has to struggle or work hard to accomplish something he or she thinks this means they aren't good enough. They used to skills come in easily. And when they have to put in effort their brain tells them that's proof they're an imposter. Yeah, okay, I come under the natural genius category. Because I'm very, very good at concepts. If you give me the concept, I can then understand it, break it down, break it apart, show it back to you teach you all about it. I'm very good on on understanding the reason behind something. And the difficulty for me is because that is so easy for me, when I don't understand something. It's like, it's more than stubbing my toe? It's like I've run into a brick wall, and I can't cope.

Gillyanne Kayes: 11:34

Hmm. Absolutely.

Jeremy : 11:36

Julian has many, many, many examples of that.

Gillyanne Kayes: 11:39

All right. Now, let's have a look at the soloists because I've actually written down me here, which might surprise you

Jeremy : 11:45

doesn't surprise me at all. Right, the soloist feels they have to accomplish tasks on their own. And if they need to ask for help, they think that means they're a failure or a fraud.

Gillyanne Kayes: 11:58

Actually, that's true. I've already fessed up to that haven't I?

Jeremy : 12:01

And it was very interesting, because because we've written so much together mean, we work together, we're married. And we write a lot together. And the whole process of writing we've been writing together now for almost 20 years now it is 20 years. Because we co wrote successful singing auditions.

Gillyanne Kayes: 12:20

Yeah, it'll be 20 years next year

Jeremy : 12:23

2001. We were actually writing it in 2001.

Gillyanne Kayes: 12:27

you're right.

Jeremy : 12:29

And it was published in 2002. So yeah, we when we write together, it's taken a very long time, it's taken actually 20 years genuinely, to get Gillyanne to release the grip on the manuscript, or whatever part of it she's writing, because she will not let me see it until it's completely finished.

Gillyanne Kayes: 12:48

It's got to be perfect before he looks at it.

Jeremy : 12:50

Correct.

Gillyanne Kayes: 12:51

And I have to process all my thoughts. When we wrote, actually, I think it was a great learning exercise for us to do the collaborative process with the Singing Express series, particularly with Ana Sanderson. And then when we wrote This is a Voice, I think that was a really good, collaborative writing project between us, wasn't it? Say yes!

Jeremy : 13:15

it was absolutely it was Yeah. And it was one of those This is a Voice in particular, normally to write a book that complex would take you well over a year. And I think we had five months from start to finish. And it was a huge book to write and with so many different topics, some of which have never been put together before. And so we split up some of the work, and then we co wrote the rest of it. And because we were on such a horribly tight deadline, there was no opportunity to go, I'll just get to write this and let me finish it, leave it leave it with me for a month and then I'll sort of let you see. There was no opportunity for that.

Gillyanne Kayes: 13:51

It was a great exercise. And actually, it meant that each of us could draft something then we'd get together we'd look at it, we'd fine tune it so and off we'd go.

Jeremy : 14:00

Um, can I say we will never do a deadline like that again. Thank you. Don't ask.

Gillyanne Kayes: 14:04

Very proud of the book though.

Jeremy : 14:06

Oh, yeah. Okay, number five,

Gillyanne Kayes: 14:08

the superhuman Supermen or Superwomen,

Jeremy : 14:11

Supermen or Superwomen push themselves to work harder than those around them to prove they're not imposters. They feel the need to succeed in all aspects of life at work as parents as partners, and may feel stressed when they are not accomplishing something.

Gillyanne Kayes: 14:24

I wonder if I'm a bit that

Jeremy : 14:26

I don't think so. I have flashes of it. Occasionally. There was one job that I did. And I was working 18 hours a day genuinely working 18 hours a day learning 800 different pieces. And just doing absolutely going absolutely full out with everything I'd got. And people still didn't like me at the end of it. And that was a real lesson. Which is like it does not matter how hard you work. If somebody doesn't like you, working harder is not going to make them like you. That was really fascinating, big game changer for me. Well, look, I want to ask people, you can comment on it. Actually, if you have any questions about these things, please do. Send us a recorded message. Actually, if you go to speakpipe.com/VocalProcess, you can record a message for us

Gillyanne Kayes: 15:20

and insights, we'd love to hear that.

Jeremy : 15:21

Oh, yes. If you recognise yourself in any of those five, do let us know.

Gillyanne Kayes: 15:26

Well, so now we've told you about imposter syndrome and we've flagged some different types. What are we going to do about it? Okay. imposter buster. Okay, number one,

Jeremy : 15:39

imposter buster, number one, deal with the loneliness. So an important aspect is to tackle the loneliness, you feel alone, because everyone around you seems so much more successful or knowledgeable or calm. The antidote to this is a feeling of belonging, of seeing other people like you, and that you are not alone.

Gillyanne Kayes: 15:58

And this is something again, that singing teachers talk about. I mean, partly because of the way that we tend to teach, you know, we tend to teach one to one in a room, we're on our own

Jeremy : 16:09

or one to group

Gillyanne Kayes: 16:10

I mean, that's, that's the very traditional way of doing it. And I think as well, possibly our let's say, our college system, our sort of higher education system has traditionally not been geared towards collaborative teaching, that's beginning to change. Now people are looking at it, and finding that collaborative teaching really raises the level for everybody.

Jeremy : 16:34

I mean, you were collaborative teaching, before I even met you 25 years.

Gillyanne Kayes: 16:39

I was I love doing joint workshops with people. Yeah. And isn't that interesting, given that I also have the soloist aspect. Yeah, yeah.

Jeremy : 16:48

But that's a very strong part of you. And of course, I'm a collaborative pianist by training and inclination. So I always perform with other people.

Gillyanne Kayes: 16:54

Maybe I naturally found out quite early on that by working with other people, it sort of ameliorated the imposter syndrome and the anxiety that comes from it. Do you know what i think that's exactly what happened.

Jeremy : 17:09

Yeah, I think it's really important to find a group of people that you can be yourself with, or to find a group that you can join that encourages you, supports you, validates you actually

Gillyanne Kayes: 17:22

So that you can experience that vulnerability and, and kind of get through it. I think it's important, you're not alone.

Jeremy : 17:31

I just want to say one thing. And this is a new thing for us this year. We've always liked creating communities. But when we've started the Accreditation programme for our teachers, this year, we set up a new online community called circle, Circle.so. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's, it's like Facebook, but it isn't owned by Facebook, and therefore none of your material is owned by Facebook.

Gillyanne Kayes: 17:59

For people who know these platforms, it's a little bit like an interface between Facebook and Slack. So that you can have you know, very clearly defined, they're called spaces, aren't they clearly defined threads, so you can have conversations within those threads. But you know, you can also respond to things on an intuitive level, you can upload videos, audio files, you can message people it's it's really cool. And they're loving it, aren't they absolutely loving,

Jeremy : 18:29

it's worked far better than we expected it to. And actually, the circle community is really strong.

Gillyanne Kayes: 18:35

It's been a real contribution to this idea of blended learning. Okay, so so that's Buster number one, which is find your tribe actually

Jeremy : 18:46

Find your tribe

Gillyanne Kayes: 18:49

now what about dealing with

Jeremy : 18:51

Okay, imposter Buster number two

Gillyanne Kayes: 18:54

Okay, cool.

Jeremy : 18:55

Imposter Buster Number two, working with criticism. This is a really tricky one for anybody with imposter syndrome. Because if you hear any type of criticism at all, you assume that it's a personal attack on you. And this is learning to value constructive criticism and I'm going to separate constructive and destructive out. And by the way, talk about wolf in sheep's clothing. Some people give you destructive criticism, but they say it in such a nice tone of voice with such lovely wording that you really feel devastated by it but you're going but they're being so kind. No, they're not. They're actually being disruptive. So, here's an interesting one...

Gillyanne Kayes: 19:35

That's gaslighting

Jeremy : 19:36

Yes it is.

Gillyanne Kayes: 19:39

So we're talking about constructive criticism.

Jeremy : 19:42

And constructive criticism is some somebody who basically gives you a piece of advice that will help you grow, not cut you down. And there is I think, a mistaken belief that if you if you want to help somebody you have to, YOU have to cut them down. In order to bring them down to earth, and then they can build up again,

Gillyanne Kayes: 20:04

that's not constructive.

Jeremy : 20:05

Well, first of all, it's not constructive criticism anyway. But the second thing is, if you're dealing with somebody with imposter syndrome, it is absolutely the worst thing you can do to tell them, they're really bad at something, because you will simply underline everything that they already believe, and they'll be completely stuck. So bless you for that. But please don't do it. This is it's

Gillyanne Kayes: 20:26

It's about recognising the value of it, isn't it that if somebody gives you feedback, or points out an area where you could improve, I think what you've got to do is maybe recognise that initial emotional response, which might be a freeze, or or you might be angry, or you might want to cry and to recognise that and then stop and go What is useful about what I've just been told, this is where the curiosity comes in again, isn't it? Be curious about what they've told you? How could it help you?

Jeremy : 21:01

I'd actually go further and go, IS there any value in what I've just been told? Or is it just entirely destructive?

Gillyanne Kayes: 21:07

I think what can happen, I mean, speaking for myself, that if you do suffer, sometimes from imposter syndrome, what happens is because you're so self critical anyway, when someone else criticises it kind of builds into that. So you really need to, I mean, you've written here in the blog, that I like, feel the emotions that it creates, but also recognise them as maybe being unnecessarily extreme in terms of a response.

Jeremy : 21:38

Can I just talk about that unnecessarily extreme thing? Guilty. What happens is that you can go completely apoplectic, completely volcano on something that somebody has said, and what you come to realise is that although the emotion is there, it's way out of proportion to what just happened. And if you like, that's the first trigger to look for, which is, is the emotion that I'm feeling out of proportion to what's just happened.

Gillyanne Kayes: 22:05

Oh, you know what this is, I mean, I can't think of a concrete example. And it's probably better not to quote one, but we respond differently to emails. So Jeremy might come to me and maybe we've had a rude email from someone. And he'll read it and his tone of voice and his demeanour says that this is a terrible email. And you know that I can then get involved in this email. And what I found over and over again, is that if I then go and read it for myself, I have a different response. I can then go to email to Jeremy. And we sort of we de-charge, you lose the charge on it. And you do that for me. Yes. And I think that is very helpful if you then move on to

Jeremy : 22:52

get guidance. And this is imposter buster, number three, yes, guidance. So it's actually tied in very much with the whole criticism thing. And also the filter that you need need to be able to put into place to work out whether it's destructive or constructive. Find a mentor, find a mentor to talk to. We have had life coach, I've had a life coach for...

Gillyanne Kayes: 23:16

Since you were 40, don't say anymore. Yeah, it was your 40th birthday present

Jeremy : 23:21

Nearly 20 years. And he's brilliant, because he acts like a safety valve for me, so I can discuss things with him. There's no particular judgement, we find out what the trigger if you like is, and triggers are fascinating, because if you have a trigger, it's your own trigger. And your own trigger normally comes from a pattern from childhood. A lot of patterns are set between zero and seven, occasionally zero and nine,

Gillyanne Kayes: 23:48

usually some kind of a trauma, you know, that was unintentionally inflicted, but that you registered as traumatic. I mean, we are not psychologists and psychotherapists, but I think most people listening would be aware of that.

Jeremy : 24:04

And I think it's really interesting because the it's the trigger that's causing that extreme emotion and not the situation currently. And one of the things that you can do do is actually describe to yourself the situation that you what you are doing right at that moment, factually. So I am standing here I am reading an email. That's all I'm doing. I'm not being threatened by a Sabre toothed tiger.

Gillyanne Kayes: 24:25

Now, we've both been mentored by this person, we work with him separately. And we also say,

Jeremy : 24:31

we tried to work with him together and he was completely flummoxed by it, because we're such different energies,

Gillyanne Kayes: 24:36

energies are very different. Yeah. We also have our associate trainer Anne Leatherland of VocALintuition, and she has trained as a personal life coach and mentor, and is great having her around because if someone on course has a wobble, yes, and they do, we can say okay, cool. Why don't you go and have a chat with them, you know, check out what's really going on there. And she's very, very good.

Jeremy : 25:02

So I think we should move on to imposter Buster number four, which is validate your feelings.

Gillyanne Kayes: 25:09

Can I just say something about this because, you know, you have a negative experience and maybe it's at a conference or you're on some kind of a course. Or it's, it's a performance. And you sort of know that you have a bit of anxiety and and imposter syndrome. And what you do then, is you beat yourself up, because you're having those feelings, I shouldn't have these feelings. I have a doctorate in voice research, why am I having these feelings, that does not help you to deal with it.

Jeremy : 25:39

And it's a really interesting one, because you can say, I am angry. But if you say I feel angry, then there's a different part of you that's out side of that emotion, feeling the anger. And that's validating that you are feeling anger is not necessarily validating the situation is validating your emotion.

Gillyanne Kayes: 25:57

Something that I've been looking at, because I've been reading quite a lot about ways of dealing with anxiety. And one of the things that's really changed the way I look at something that makes me anxious is curiosity. And I love this idea of going, hmm, what's going on with me right now? Hmm, I think I'm feeling anxious. And I will literally now say that aloud to myself as a trigger, to then sit down and feel the feeling of the anxiety rather than trying to intellectualise it Why am I having it I shouldn't be having it, I've got a doctorate in voice research, I'm this, I'm that I'm 65 I AM 65 I should know better by now. All of those things, all of that self talk that we go through. Sit with the feeling. And what very typically happens is that it will lessen

Jeremy : 26:57

I have a very slightly different version of the same thing. I will go What am I feeling? Why am I feeling this? And inbuilt in the Why is is this an appropriate level of emotion for what's just happened? And actually, over the years, that's really helped me because it's almost dialling down something. Because the moment I get curious about it, I go, Oh, this is a this it's a thing. It's not me. And I'm not actually literally being attacked, it's a thing. And if it's a thing, I can sort of gently remove myself from it and then examine it. And this is I read a read quite a nice sentence here. If your feelings don't support you, move you in a positive direction or work for you, you don't need them anymore. Thank them kindly and move on. And that's much easier to write than it is to say

Gillyanne Kayes: 27:50

it is I think that's why you need the time to be curious. Oh, I'm having anxiety. I'm feeling worried I'm I'm feeling imposter syndrome here. Sit with it. Because if you don't sit with it, it won't bugger off. In my experience.

Jeremy : 28:08

Say what you mean! I'm gonna go back to imposter Buster number four, which is get guidance. And this for me is where your mentor comes in. And by the way, I did want to say something about the mentor. And I think this is important. The mentor should not as far as I'm concerned, be part of your peer group. Because it's quite likely if you're going to discuss strong emotions or strong situations that your peer group people will be going through similar stuff. If your mentor is either more experienced or older than you, it's likely that they've already gone through the stuff and have dealt with it so that they can actually sit back and be removed from it but still help you deal with it

Gillyanne Kayes: 28:47

that's sort of to do with boundaries, isn't it?

Jeremy : 28:50

It is. It's why it's absolutely fine if you want emotional support to go to your peers, but if you actually want advice is probably not a good idea because they may be going through the same things,

Gillyanne Kayes: 29:00

I can see that there's a real link between valuing constructive criticism, getting guidance in case it's not constructive, and then validating your feelings. Those three seem to be quite interlinked, don't

Jeremy : 29:18

They do

Gillyanne Kayes: 29:19

Okay. Now, here's a really positive thing that particularly those of us who work in teaching, singing or voice that we can do

Jeremy : 29:29

imposter buster, number five, teach someone else. Take something that you do talk it through to someone else, talk to somebody about it, teach them how to do it. When you hear yourself describing what it is that you do, or what you want them to do. You might be surprised how much you really know. And I'm actually going to add to this one because I think it's not just about teach someone else. I think it's about teach several other someone elses, because the more you do it, the more you ask. in a different way to different people, because they're going to receive your information differently, the clearer you get on some of these ideas or some of these concepts or some of the techniques that you might do.

Gillyanne Kayes: 30:12

Yeah, I just want to say something about our buddying system that we have on the Accreditation. So each trimester, which is obviously a three month period, the participants on the course work with a buddy, so they have the same buddy for that three months. And there are certain tasks they have to do, they have to get together and meet and support each other. And of course, what they do is they share their skills with each other. And they it's kind of almost like speaking out loud, what you already know. And then they report back on that, and as it happens, we use the circle community for it. And oh, my God, the wisdom that's coming out of those buddying sessions, even in our first trimester. It's just wonderful. And it's completely raising the game on the course.

Jeremy : 31:04

Of course, also when you're doing that, and you're you're actually discussing things in a, we're doing it in a contained situation. And we usually give them specific topics to do, but they're free to discuss whatever they like, what seems to be happening is that they're actually validating each other. Because they go, Oh, yeah, I do that. Oh, that's really interesting. I've never thought of that. And so you get both self and other validation within that buddy system. It's so good. working really well. And that leads us really nicely on to imposter buster, number six, discover your FOAL area. Now the FOAL area F.O.A.L is you're falling off a log stuff. It's the stuff that you do without even thinking about it. It's the stuff that you don't rate when people go, Oh, that's amazing. You go What? What's amazing, I don't understand that. Doesn't everybody do that? And the answer is No, they don't. That stuff that you do is so ingrained in you, it's so automatic, it's so natural that you actually don't rate it, and other people go, but that's magic. And this is really interesting. It's one of the things that's been happening with the buddy system that we've got set up is that people are recognising in their buddy amazing skills that the buddy just goes but doesn't but don't you do that? And the answer is No, I don't. That's a real skill.

Gillyanne Kayes: 32:23

It actually happened after that online masterclass that we gave in Choice For Voice that somebody said to us afterwards how much they'd enjoyed it, which was great. Thank you for that. But how do you how is it that you know exactly what to do? Well, first of all, there's a long degree of experience there. And so it is very much in our FOAL area. But essentially, that's, that's why because it's in our FOAL area. But people don't get to their FOAL area without either learning something or having loads and loads of experience, do they?

Jeremy : 33:01

I don't know. I mean, some people have

Gillyanne Kayes: 33:03

Well, you're a genius.

Jeremy : 33:04

Well, this is the thing, I'm in the genius category. Some people have a natural aptitude for something, and it can be anything at all, I believe that everybody has a FOAL process at least one. And it doesn't have to be. I'm a brilliant singer, or I compose music, or whatever it is. It can be as simple as I can listen to a car engine and go there's something wrong there. And I think it's here. Or somebody who sews beautifully or somebody who is great at childcare, I mean like completely loves teenagers. To me, that's a complete falling off a log area. If you love teenagers, you're welcome to them. That sort of thing. So there's this lots of different skills that fall into the FOAL area.

Gillyanne Kayes: 33:45

I may have shared this before. That Jeremy is a magician with keys.

Jeremy : 33:52

Oh, unlocking doors and stuff. Yeah, well,

Gillyanne Kayes: 33:54

I will fight with the key if I can't get you know, the key doesn't work the first time. You know, I'm struggling. I'm pushing it. I'm driving it. And Jeremy will come along and go. I'll just wiggle this a little bit.

Jeremy : 34:08

I tune into the keyhole.

Gillyanne Kayes: 34:09

Maybe we're a burglar in an earlier life. I don't know. But he just seems to do that

Jeremy : 34:15

There's a whole part of my life and doing nothing about it.

Gillyanne Kayes: 34:17

Absolutely. Um, I want to say something again, about working with teachers. I have found consistently that teachers do not recognise the skills that they have the skills that they bring with them when they first come to a course. For instance, someone who has the ability to nail a style. And they have that musicianship that they they seem to be able to own it and make it authentic and teach in different styles. They understand the musical phrasing, or you know, somebody who is able to really hear different resonances in the voice and for them that Very, very obvious, or someone who recognises the physicality of that singer and is able to do something with it. And often the teacher doesn't realise how good they are at that.

Jeremy : 35:11

Yep. I want to read a little bit of what I wrote in the article. If you're working or living in your FOAL area, you will be able to bring a deep, almost instinctive knowledge to the topic that from outside can look like magic. But from inside, because we're so used to it, it carries no special label or feeling and we tend to dismiss it. Trust me, when you're in your FOAL area, it IS magic.

Gillyanne Kayes: 35:34

I think that's true. And thinking about career patterns. If you can recognise your FOAL area and build with it, then you're going to attract the people who want to work with you. Oh, yes.

Jeremy : 35:50

I mean, the whole portfolio career thing is really fascinating. I didn't realise that had a portfolio career until somebody told me what the term was. And I went, well, that's been the last 30 years of my life. And it's about finding something that you enjoy doing or that you like doing or that you're good at, or that, frankly, that people will employ you for, because they can see that it's a FOAL area, even if you can't, and I'm just doing it and then finding something else. And I was looking for the thread that runs through my career. And really, the thread is making things work. Which is a slightly weird thread to do. But in performance, it's like I need to make this performance work, I need to make this music work. When I'm working with other people, I found out what they're doing, I need to map my stuff onto theirs. And then somehow, we can just twist it to make it more them or more me or whatever. Or I need to do... Actually a very good example was the app that we did the One Minute Voice Warmup, I can't draw. But I knew what I wanted. And I knew that I had to have a little cartoons and I've always loved black and white line drawings. Not that I've ever done them, but I like them. And so I just found a programme online and I went I know that what I want. I can't explain to other people on how to draw it. So I sat and learned to draw and so all the cartoons in the One Minute Voice Warmup app are me drawing on Google draw. I think it was just line drawing, worked really well. Yeah. Not something I thought I was ever going to do.

Gillyanne Kayes: 37:23

I'm just thinking about something that it took me a while to recognise which is it's just to do with the way I think you know, I enjoy structured thought. So I really like to see how things fit into different categories. And then it's my pleasure to see how those categories interlink. I like to see the connectedness between them. And I think that's one of the reasons first of all, I think it's one of the reasons why I'm a very good voice trainer. I also think it's one of the reasons why I'm good as a trainer of trainers because I can then explain that to other teachers. Yep, that's my thing. Yeah.

Jeremy : 38:10

Okay.

Gillyanne Kayes: 38:11

This is the last imposter Buster number seven imposter buster.

Jeremy : 38:16

Number seven, how good is good. Decide how good is good enough. And in a way, we're going to the the perfectionist thing this really tackles the perfectionist thing. But it's been a really fascinating journey for me. You want 100% you want to give 100% you always want to give 100% because you want to be effective. You want to have an effect on the world. You want to help your students. You know, you want to support people that sort of your life goal. If you like, you want to be 100% you want to be top of the class, you want to be best in the business. That is terrifyingly tiring, day in day out. Congratulations, if you've got the stamina. How much could you change that percentage would 98% be good enough? I think it is an absolutely fascinating question. Because boy, have I been there. And I have a I have a sentence that I give to myself, which is really, really useful, which is today. 95% is good enough.

Gillyanne Kayes: 39:21

I think this is an aspect of imposter syndrome that celebrities might suffer from, you know, you suddenly become very, very famous, or even a top level performer and everybody then expects you to be what did you always say you're only as good as your last performance?

Jeremy : 39:38

Absolutely.

Gillyanne Kayes: 39:40

And that's okay.

Jeremy : 39:43

Today 95% is good enough. And all I'm really doing there is dialling down the expectation for myself. It's also sort of dealing with the perfectionist bit where you go, it's okay. And actually there was another phrase that I didn't write in the article but I do use it which is I can be crap for 10 minutes. That saved my sanity about 15 years ago, I can be crap for 10 minutes, because actually, it doesn't matter. What's so interesting, if I got an hour, if I'm doing a presentation or a masterclass or a lesson or whatever, I can be crap for the first half of it all the first quarter of it, or the first 10th of it, or the first four minutes of it. And it doesn't matter. Because I know that giving myself permission to be crap for that short amount of time means that I can sort of ease myself in, and then I'll be great.

Gillyanne Kayes: 40:33

It's something that we do if we're doing a public presentation. And we get nervous, I'll say, remember, we can be crap for 10 minutes?

Jeremy : 40:42

Yes.

Gillyanne Kayes: 40:42

And actually, usually, it's only about five.

Jeremy : 40:46

Yeah, we're still crap

Gillyanne Kayes: 40:47

But because you have that permission... speak for yourself!

Jeremy : 40:52

And there's one other phrase that I put in the article, which is best I can do today. And that's really important. Because the best I can do today is I'm giving whatever I've got today, and if that means I'm really on form, I'm, you know I've got loads of energy are really comfortable with where I am what I'm doing, that's great, I can give that that's the best I can do today. If I've had a really bad day, I've had no sleep, there's a chainsaw going on next door, you know, just horrible. I've had some vile emails, or whatever it is, it's still the best I can do today. And I think that's really interesting. It's like whatever energy I have, I'm going to do this. And that's the best I can do today. I will know more tomorrow, I might even do it better tomorrow. But today is the best I can do today.

Gillyanne Kayes: 41:41

So we would love to know what your experiences of any of these seven points. And if you feel like sharing that or asking questions about it, please go ahead. Now there's a couple of things I want to mention...

Jeremy : 41:55

I just want to I want to read something out to you. Because this came up yesterday from one of our trainees, and I just want to read a single sentence out. She said... we just done a really powerful training on breathing, breath pressure, breath and pressure,

Gillyanne Kayes: 42:12

Pressure and flow

Jeremy : 42:12

Pressure and flow. And it was very powerful, quite complicated. But you know, we did our best to break down all of the concepts of breathing and flow in singing. And she said, I found I was overwhelmed by years and years and lots of notebooks of other people's ideas. And I don't really know how to zone in on my own. And that's a very powerful thing for somebody to say, which is actually quite normal as well. Because as a singing teacher, you have your like magpies you pick up anything that is lovely and shiny, and you put them together in your nest. And that's really what you base your teaching on.

Gillyanne Kayes: 42:53

And what's so marvellous is that the next thing that happened was that this person did zone in on their own instinct,

Jeremy : 43:01

Well in fact, she went straight to three of the seven imposter busters straight away, which is the first thing is she reached out to deal with the loneliness. She actually said, I don't know what I'm doing, you know, this is horrible. But she put it in a in a safe space in a safe post to the community that she was part of. So that's the first thing which is congratulations for reaching out, brilliant. The second thing is she got guidance. And in fact, she got guidance from us. And she also got guidance from her peers as well. It's been lots of comments on that thing saying yes, I completely feel where you are. So we're getting guidance on how to deal with that and what to do with it. And the third is that she validated her feelings. You know, congratulations for that, because that in itself is very powerful.

Gillyanne Kayes: 43:49

Rather than sitting on them. Yes. Frog moment. Okay, um, we would like to flag a couple of things, wouldn't we that we would Yes, first of all, can I do a little shout out for our colleague, Dr. Marisa Lee Naismith.

Jeremy : 44:10

Hi Marisa

Gillyanne Kayes: 44:11

she does a lovely podcast called A Voice and Beyond. And she's put together snippets from all of her podcasts, I think, this year, under the title, embracing self care. And I think it's a very important topic at the moment and obviously, dealing with your own imposter syndrome is part of embracing self care. Do check it out. It was released this week. So that's A Voice and Beyond. And there are lots of lovely people sharing including us what their self care routines are and how they look after themselves. Okay, um, I mentioned earlier that I'd done a live on Facebook and Instagram. Don't be in the dark, no silly questions. The joke is if you look at this, I was in the dark. I have no camera sense, because it was such a sunny day, and you will barely see me. But hey, it was good enough. I think that what I had to say, was still heard and is important. But check that out because of the idea of feeling you can ask questions on a course I think it's important

Jeremy : 45:18

And congratulations from me for doing best I can do today.

Gillyanne Kayes: 45:21

Absolutely. I left it as it was. And then I want to talk about some of our courses. Actually, some of these are quite a long way off. But what I want to say is we have a very nurturing approach in the way that we work with teachers. And we think that collegiality is incredibly important. And that's what we foster in our trainings. So if you want to do a training course that will take you into that community feel you should look at our Online Singing Teacher Training courses. Yes. Now we have just done a Week One. So you've missed a Week One until 2022. What was the date for the next Week One?

Jeremy : 46:04

Online Singing Teacher Training Week One January the 15th to 19th. And it's two hours a day in the mornings. And the idea of that all of our Online Singing Teacher Training courses that we have three weeks of them is that we do two hours, normally between 10 and 12 UK time. And then in the afternoon, you are free to do whatever it is that you do in your life. And what people will often do is take a technique that they've learned at that morning and try it out immediately with students. And then we get feedback following day, which is brilliant.

Gillyanne Kayes: 46:33

Now we've got a Week Two coming up in October, haven't we? Now you can join Week Two, if you did, OSTT One already previously, or if you qualify for it from her as other courses that you've done with us, check that out, go on to the website. And if you're not sure, just email us.

Jeremy : 46:52

So the first run of OSTT Two is October 23 to 27th. So if you're eligible for that, please join us

Gillyanne Kayes: 46:59

and the second one is February 12 to 16th 2022. What we often find is that people who do OSTT One want to go straight on to OSTT Two, because then they're within that community. As it happens, there is an OSST Three isn't there, Online Singing Teacher Training Three

Jeremy : 47:18

excuse me, OSTT Three is by invitation only.

Gillyanne Kayes: 47:21

It is, yes,

Jeremy : 47:22

OSTT Three is actually you have to have done weeks One and Two to even be invited on O TT Three. But Three is t e stepping stone to t e Accreditation programme. A d that's also by invitation onl. So we don't allow anybody on o

Gillyanne Kayes: 47:34

and who we don't think will benefit from r Accreditation programme th t we've not worked with qui e extensive it. Yeah,

Jeremy : 47:43

there would be no point in having people on the course that we don't think would manage it

Gillyanne Kayes: 47:47

right now.

Jeremy : 47:48

We're going to do those dates again. Okay, because that's quite complicated. So we've already done Week One, we did that a couple of weeks ago. The next Week Two is October 23 to 27th. If you want to do Weeks One and Two together, it's January 15 to 19th 2022 and February the 12th to 16th 2022.

Gillyanne Kayes: 48:09

Okay, so we have waived this tidbit in front of you and some of you are going yeah, but that's ages away. I don't want to wait that long. Yeah. So what we suggest, if you'd like to see how we work, how we handle questions, how we work with our community before then get yourself into the Learning Lounge. And the two things I would recommend for that would be to watch two videos have five hour courses, live courses in person with people in the room. Yeah. So these were recorded before the pandemic. One is Best Practice Update, and the other is Mastering Musical Theatre. Now what's cool about these if you're immediately thinking, oh my god, five hours of video, it's not like that. It's all chunked up into five minute sections.

Jeremy : 49:01

N is between I think it's three and 20 minutes. I think the longest section is 20 minutes, and we left it at 20 minutes because that was a masterclass section. But everything is not just chunked up, but it's also labelled with what's in it. So if you want to jump straight into one of the style features that you use in the some from waitress, I didn't plan it. You can go straight to that section. To find the Vocal Process Learning Lounge you can type into Google Vocal Process Learning Lounge and the link will come up. I'm going to read this link because it's quite long, but we will put it in the show notes vocal-process-hub.teachable.com/p/the-vocal-technique-learning-lounge. That's where we're putting in the show notes so that you can click straight away. I

Gillyanne Kayes: 49:51

love the way you did that. So rhythmically. And we'll also put Marisa's The Voice and Beyond podcast in the show notes. Embracing self care.

Jeremy : 50:02

And remember if you've got any questions, it's speakpipe.com/Vocal-Process. There

Gillyanne Kayes: 50:07

are no silly questions.

Jeremy : 50:09

Yeah,

Gillyanne Kayes: 50:09

we love your question.

Jeremy : 50:11

Absolutely.

Gillyanne Kayes: 50:11

We get some goodies. We'll create a whole podcast around them. Yeah.

Jeremy : 50:15

Okay, we are done. Hopefully you're feeling a bit better about imposter syndrome. So we'll see you next time. Bye.

Gillyanne Kayes: 50:20

Bye bye.

Jeremy : 50:33

This is a voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher.