Impostor Syndrome

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:25

Welcome back.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:26

In the bunker.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:28

Today's episode is going to be a little different.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:30

Um, in the sense of, this is a challenge that.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:35

I myself has struggled with.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:37

In starting this podcast in the bunker.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:40

I was faced with the issue of imposter syndrome, myself.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:44

I planned on launching in the bunker back in January of 2022.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:48

After prerecording, a handful of episodes.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:50

However.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:51

After I had gone through and edited some.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:55

I just didn't feel like everything was fully polished.

Joshua Maddux: 00:00:59

And wasn't as good as it could be.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:03

I felt like an imposter.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:04

And.

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I just, I didn't.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:08

I didn't hit go.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:09

I didn't launch.

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And.

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January became February, February became March.

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And then you can't launch a podcast the first week of April.

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And so I just kept pushing the deadline.

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And it wasn't until I started editing this episode.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:29

I need to put a date on when I'm launching the podcast.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:34

And so.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:34

This is a challenge that I, myself struggle with.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:38

And I think so many other business owners do as well.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:42

I'm super excited to jump into this episode.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:44

And have Chris unpack.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:47

What imposter syndrome looks like.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:49

How it can hurt business owners.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:53

And some things that we can do to sort of combat that as well.

Joshua Maddux: 00:01:57

I really do want to thank everyone who has listened.

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As business owners, there are so many things that we

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battle with on a daily basis.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:06

And.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:07

Knowing that.

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There are other people out there that struggle with the same challenges as us.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:15

Is just super relieving.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:18

Um, and knowing that you have someone else.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:22

Who you can rely on both for.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:25

Resources, but also just the aspect of them being there,

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:30

sort of as a sounding wall.

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So I appreciate Chris and everything he talks about in this episode.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:36

I appreciate you as a listener.

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And I really am excited to jump in.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:41

So.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:42

Thanks for being here this week

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:44

Today, we have Chris Kelso on the show with us.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:46

Chris was faced with a challenge of imposter syndrome.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:50

So many small businesses feel this, that fake it till you make it type aspect.

Joshua Maddux: 00:02:55

And really, we all go through that in starting a business.

Joshua Maddux: 00:03:01

Chris felt that his success was more accidental than earned and

Joshua Maddux: 00:03:06

he wasn't legit as an honorary.

Joshua Maddux: 00:03:09

There's so much here to learn and to unpack, I'm excited to jump

Joshua Maddux: 00:03:12

in and have Chris on the show.

Joshua Maddux: 00:03:14

Welcome to the show, Chris.

Kris Kelso: 00:03:15

Thank you.

Kris Kelso: 00:03:15

Josh is going to be

Kris Kelso: 00:03:16

here.

Joshua Maddux: 00:03:17

Awesome.

Joshua Maddux: 00:03:18

So let's get to know you a little bit better.

Joshua Maddux: 00:03:21

Let's go ahead and unpack who are you and how'd you get here?

Joshua Maddux: 00:03:26

What do you.

Kris Kelso: 00:03:26

My career has been a sort of twisty turny road, driven a lot by

Kris Kelso: 00:03:33

my curiosity and passions and interests.

Kris Kelso: 00:03:36

I had a short stint in the music industry in my late teens, early twenties.

Kris Kelso: 00:03:40

And then I.

Kris Kelso: 00:03:42

Sort of pivoted into technology and spent several years as a software developer,

Kris Kelso: 00:03:47

working with some large healthcare firms.

Kris Kelso: 00:03:49

And for years I said, I never wanted to own a business.

Kris Kelso: 00:03:52

I had no interest in being an entrepreneur.

Kris Kelso: 00:03:54

I didn't want the risk and the headaches and everything that I saw

Kris Kelso: 00:03:58

that business owners seem to have to deal with just was not appealing to me.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:01

And then.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:02

It was as if one day I woke up and nothing else made sense to me

Kris Kelso: 00:04:07

except starting my own company, like somewhere a switch flipped.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:10

And I just knew that I had to go into business for myself and come

Kris Kelso: 00:04:14

to find out, years later I looked back and realize that I always had

Kris Kelso: 00:04:17

entrepreneurship in my blood, if you will.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:19

I was always trying different things and launching little side

Kris Kelso: 00:04:22

ventures and figuring out what yeah.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:24

Make money.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:25

And and even some of my family history, there's some entrepreneurship there

Kris Kelso: 00:04:28

and maybe that's just what I was running from for a period of time.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:32

Even my wife knew she later told me that she always knew I

Kris Kelso: 00:04:35

would own a business one day.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:36

And even when I was saying that I'd never wanted to do that, she was going, yeah.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:40

Yeah, we'll see.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:41

So I I started my first company about 15 years ago.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:45

It was an it consulting firm focused on working with pretty large

Kris Kelso: 00:04:49

companies that had dysfunctional and underperforming it departments.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:54

And I started that business on my own with just me at the beginning.

Kris Kelso: 00:04:59

I had no real business education, but I went and bought a stack of books at

Kris Kelso: 00:05:03

a bookstore on everything I thought I needed to know to run a business and

Kris Kelso: 00:05:06

I read them all and, and just figured out how to learn what I needed to learn

Kris Kelso: 00:05:10

along the way, very much in real time.

Kris Kelso: 00:05:12

But eventually I grew that company to millions in revenue and had a team

Kris Kelso: 00:05:16

of mostly former CIOs and VP level people that worked together to help our

Kris Kelso: 00:05:21

clients really improve their IT work.

Kris Kelso: 00:05:24

And over the years, I, it I co-founded a second company, a cloud computing

Kris Kelso: 00:05:28

platform ran that a CEO for a couple of years raised a little bit of money

Kris Kelso: 00:05:32

from some investors for that one.

Kris Kelso: 00:05:34

Got it to profitability.

Kris Kelso: 00:05:35

And then for the last five or so years, I have been working independently.

Kris Kelso: 00:05:41

As an executive coach and doing leadership development work primarily with

Kris Kelso: 00:05:45

entrepreneurs and their leadership teams.

Kris Kelso: 00:05:48

So I do one-on-one coaching.

Kris Kelso: 00:05:49

I do some group and team sessions strategic planning and goal

Kris Kelso: 00:05:53

setting and leadership training.

Kris Kelso: 00:05:55

And I do a bit of public speaking and last year or in 2020, I wrote a book

Kris Kelso: 00:06:00

and published it in January of 2021.

Kris Kelso: 00:06:02

It's always interesting to hear the the story of what

Kris Kelso: 00:06:06

that journey has looked like.

Kris Kelso: 00:06:07

And, it's always so different for so many people, but I think it's funny

Kris Kelso: 00:06:11

because I think one of the common things for entrepreneurs that say I'm

Kris Kelso: 00:06:16

never going to start my own business.

Kris Kelso: 00:06:18

Like I think that's the number one telltale sign that you

Kris Kelso: 00:06:21

will be starting a business.

Kris Kelso: 00:06:22

You may be starting.

Kris Kelso: 00:06:23

Yes.

Joshua Maddux: 00:06:24

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux: 00:06:25

Always so good.

Joshua Maddux: 00:06:28

Obviously through this whole path and the journey that you've been on,

Joshua Maddux: 00:06:34

there's been some challenges over the years, what businesses without them.

Joshua Maddux: 00:06:39

I know one of the challenges and obviously the main one that you wrote

Joshua Maddux: 00:06:43

a book on was that imposter syndrome.

Kris Kelso: 00:06:46

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux: 00:06:47

Would love to dive into that a little bit

Joshua Maddux: 00:06:50

and talk through some of that.

Joshua Maddux: 00:06:51

You mentioned how you started an it consulting firm by literally grabbing a

Joshua Maddux: 00:06:56

few books off a shelf and reading them.

Joshua Maddux: 00:06:58

But then the company had multiple different, high level executives

Joshua Maddux: 00:07:04

doing millions of dollars a year.

Joshua Maddux: 00:07:05

So obviously there's a point where.

Joshua Maddux: 00:07:10

You realize oh, we've made it or, Hey, we aren't an imposter anymore.

Joshua Maddux: 00:07:15

So what did that journey look like?

Joshua Maddux: 00:07:17

What is that overcoming the imposter sort of syndrome look like?

Kris Kelso: 00:07:21

As I said, I started my business with no real business education.

Kris Kelso: 00:07:25

In fact, I never even went to college.

Kris Kelso: 00:07:26

I don't have a degree.

Kris Kelso: 00:07:28

And that's a whole, another long story of the history of how I got to where I was.

Kris Kelso: 00:07:34

But at the time I had no real business training, but I knew

Kris Kelso: 00:07:37

there were things I didn't know.

Kris Kelso: 00:07:39

And I I bought a stack of books, as I mentioned I read them all

Kris Kelso: 00:07:43

and and every time I encountered something that I didn't know.

Kris Kelso: 00:07:46

I figured out a way to learn it.

Kris Kelso: 00:07:47

And sometimes in real time, as I was doing it just as the need arose, but

Kris Kelso: 00:07:53

because of that, I always carried this persistent fear, this nagging.

Kris Kelso: 00:07:58

Voice in the back of my head that would tell me that at some point you're going

Kris Kelso: 00:08:02

to encounter something that you don't know that you should know, and you're

Kris Kelso: 00:08:05

going to be exposed as a fraud because you didn't go to business school and you

Kris Kelso: 00:08:09

don't actually know what you're doing.

Kris Kelso: 00:08:10

You just read a few books and you started a company and you've landed your first

Kris Kelso: 00:08:14

client because of a relationship with a former boss that you used to work to.

Kris Kelso: 00:08:18

And he just was throwing you a bone.

Kris Kelso: 00:08:19

And if it wasn't for that, you never would have got this off the ground.

Kris Kelso: 00:08:23

And.

Kris Kelso: 00:08:23

And no matter what I achieved that voice would always come up with

Kris Kelso: 00:08:27

some other milestone that I hadn't hit or some other criteria, right?

Kris Kelso: 00:08:32

You're you're not a real business until you have employees.

Kris Kelso: 00:08:36

You're not a real business until you have a million dollars in revenue.

Kris Kelso: 00:08:39

You're not a real business until you have a physical office space.

Kris Kelso: 00:08:44

You're not a real business until you have a full C-suite of leaders.

Kris Kelso: 00:08:47

And anything that I would accomplish and figure out there was always some voice of

Kris Kelso: 00:08:51

doubt saying there's something else that, that you're missing that you don't know.

Kris Kelso: 00:08:55

And that feeling of, I don't know, what I don't know is this perpetual never ending

Kris Kelso: 00:09:00

fear if you allow it to overtake you.

Kris Kelso: 00:09:03

And it wasn't until years later probably 10 years into my

Kris Kelso: 00:09:06

entrepreneurial journey that.

Kris Kelso: 00:09:08

Learned about imposter syndrome and it was actually with an executive coach that

Kris Kelso: 00:09:13

I was talking to that explained it to me.

Kris Kelso: 00:09:15

And I started to do some real research and reading about it and, oh my goodness.

Kris Kelso: 00:09:20

It was such a relief.

Kris Kelso: 00:09:22

When I learned that not only is this a thing that psychologists have

Kris Kelso: 00:09:27

recognized and that, they've put a label on it because it's a phenomenon

Kris Kelso: 00:09:30

that's common to a lot of people.

Kris Kelso: 00:09:33

It is also something that is more prevalent among high achievers.

Kris Kelso: 00:09:37

It's actually statistically more likely that you have

Kris Kelso: 00:09:41

those feelings of self doubt.

Kris Kelso: 00:09:43

If you're a driven intentional very ambitious and aggressive person people

Kris Kelso: 00:09:49

that just coast through life don't suffer from imposter syndrome because

Kris Kelso: 00:09:52

they don't really aspire to much, but the people that are trying to grow and

Kris Kelso: 00:09:57

stretch themselves, Are often finding themselves in a place of being in over

Kris Kelso: 00:10:02

their head or out of their comfort zone or, feeling like maybe they've

Kris Kelso: 00:10:07

out kicked their coverage, so to speak.

Kris Kelso: 00:10:08

And that's a sign that you're doing great things, but the fear

Kris Kelso: 00:10:12

that comes with it, the worry and the anxiety can be debilitating.

Kris Kelso: 00:10:15

If you let it control you.

Kris Kelso: 00:10:17

And so learning about it was the first big hurdle and it was a big relief, but

Kris Kelso: 00:10:21

then I had to figure out how to manage it, how to master it, how to overcome it.

Kris Kelso: 00:10:25

And that's what I ended up writing this book about.

Joshua Maddux: 00:10:27

As you're talking, I'm thinking through.

Joshua Maddux: 00:10:30

Looking at the aspect of, I think so many companies face that because there's

Joshua Maddux: 00:10:36

always another thing as a business owner.

Joshua Maddux: 00:10:40

When we've been in business 13 years, now, my company has, and going back,

Joshua Maddux: 00:10:46

I don't know, maybe eight or 10 years ago, I'm sitting with a prospect and

Joshua Maddux: 00:10:50

the guy goes you don't have an office.

Kris Kelso: 00:10:53

Yeah

Joshua Maddux: 00:10:54

no, we don't.

Joshua Maddux: 00:10:56

And he was like I'd be more comfortable with, hiring you

Joshua Maddux: 00:10:59

guys if you had an office.

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:02

And for me it was like, oh, we're not a legitimate company, but at

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:06

the same point, if I was to get an office, then I would have to

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:10

increase, my costs by 20, 30, 40, 50%.

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:15

And so I'm like, okay is that client then willing to pay?

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:20

One and a half to two times what I'm estimating their costs are

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:24

going to be, and that client's not.

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:27

So then they either need to be okay with us not having an office because that's not

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:37

the type of business we are or we need to be okay with not having them as a client.

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:45

I think sometimes that's where the fear gets exponential because not

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:51

only is it the fear of, oh, we're not a real business because we don't

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:55

have an office but if we don't have an office, then we lose this project.

Joshua Maddux: 00:11:58

If we lose this project, then we aren't making money.

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:01

If we're not making money, we're not in business.

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:03

So if I don't have an office and there's this spiral

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:07

effect, I think we can go into.

Kris Kelso: 00:12:09

The whole, thing unravels in your mind even before

Kris Kelso: 00:12:12

the first domino has fallen.

Kris Kelso: 00:12:13

You see it all coming apart.

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:15

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:15

And, owning a digital agency.

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:17

We've had clients over the years, come to us and, Hey, we need to look like

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:21

this other company or we need to look like we're five times bigger and we need

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:24

to fake it till we make it or whatever.

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:26

And in reality, Online.

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:28

Yes, you can do that to a point,

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:30

But at the same point, if you're

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:32

looking like another company and you're trying to be that other

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:36

thing, then why are you in business?

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:40

Because if you're trying to be exactly like someone else, then your prospect

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:46

is just going to hire that other person.

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:48

You're trying to.

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:50

Because they're the actual one and you're the imposter.

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:54

So I think there's, for me personally, like that was an element that I had

Joshua Maddux: 00:12:59

to realize with my business of no, we're not going to, be the imposter

Joshua Maddux: 00:13:03

of this other business because we're just being a crappier version really.

Joshua Maddux: 00:13:08

And that's not going to be great for anything.

Joshua Maddux: 00:13:12

Yeah, we need to be our own and be okay with that.

Joshua Maddux: 00:13:15

So what does that look like?

Joshua Maddux: 00:13:16

Obviously there's a whole process to really overcoming this from

Joshua Maddux: 00:13:21

a business perspective, but what is, what does that look like?

Joshua Maddux: 00:13:25

Maybe going back to the, it consulting firm or, something in

Joshua Maddux: 00:13:28

that realm, what did that look like of, working through that or over.

Kris Kelso: 00:13:34

Dealing with imposter syndrome and overcoming imposter syndrome.

Kris Kelso: 00:13:37

The, as I mentioned that the awareness of it is the first big step, and

Kris Kelso: 00:13:41

it really does get you halfway because suddenly that persistent

Kris Kelso: 00:13:44

fear you recognize is a mind game.

Kris Kelso: 00:13:48

And now you can start to play the game.

Kris Kelso: 00:13:49

You can start to figure out the moves to counteract it.

Kris Kelso: 00:13:52

And so when I talk to people about imposter syndrome, just

Kris Kelso: 00:13:56

learning about it often is a huge relief but that's not enough.

Kris Kelso: 00:13:59

Just being aware.

Kris Kelso: 00:14:00

Now you have to start to.

Kris Kelso: 00:14:01

Understand the tactics and to make the right moves.

Kris Kelso: 00:14:04

And so there are two main fears that come along with imposter

Kris Kelso: 00:14:08

syndrome, or really there are the underpinnings of imposter syndrome.

Kris Kelso: 00:14:11

And the first is the fear of failure.

Kris Kelso: 00:14:15

And more specifically the fear of failure in public and the fear of failure

Kris Kelso: 00:14:20

in public, that's gonna destroy you.

Kris Kelso: 00:14:22

That's going to be your undoing, right?

Kris Kelso: 00:14:24

So when you struggle with imposter syndrome, when you feel like maybe I'm

Kris Kelso: 00:14:28

not legitimate, or I'm not what everyone thinks that I am, you worry that any

Kris Kelso: 00:14:32

mistake you make or any admission of a fault is going to erode your credibility

Kris Kelso: 00:14:38

is going to be your undoing and.

Kris Kelso: 00:14:42

So the temptation then is to try to cover up for any mistakes that you make

Kris Kelso: 00:14:47

to try to play it safe and not take risks, which of course business is full

Kris Kelso: 00:14:51

of risk-taking there's risk reward.

Kris Kelso: 00:14:53

And you have to be able to take risks and you have to be able to

Kris Kelso: 00:14:55

make bets when you're not certain of what the outcome is going to be.

Kris Kelso: 00:14:59

But that fear of failure will prevent you from doing that.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:02

And you stay in, in what I call the tour guide zone, where you just make

Kris Kelso: 00:15:06

the same loop over and over again, you stick to where you're comfortable.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:08

You.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:09

You only go where there's a clearly laid out path and a script and

Kris Kelso: 00:15:14

a plan, and you're not willing to cross those boundaries and

Kris Kelso: 00:15:17

get outside of your element.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:19

But if you can change your mindset about failure and you can begin

Kris Kelso: 00:15:24

to see failure as learning.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:27

Then suddenly failure is not something to be avoided.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:30

Failure is something to lean into to embrace.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:33

Not that we want to fail, not that the goal is to fail, but

Kris Kelso: 00:15:36

recognizing that failure is part of the process of success, because

Kris Kelso: 00:15:41

it's the primary way that we learn.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:43

One example and I've got dozens of examples in the book.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:47

One example is a guy named babe Ruth.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:51

You probably heard of babe Ruth.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:52

He was the, one of the greatest baseball players of all time.

Kris Kelso: 00:15:55

And he was known as the Sultan of SWAT because his he held the record for

Kris Kelso: 00:16:00

home runs and slugging percentage and RBI's and a bunch of other records.

Kris Kelso: 00:16:04

Some of, many of them still stand today, years after he's

Kris Kelso: 00:16:07

gone, but he also had a nickname.

Kris Kelso: 00:16:11

That was the king of strikeouts and his record, his career total of 1,330

Kris Kelso: 00:16:18

strikeouts was a major league baseball record for 30 years until it was

Kris Kelso: 00:16:24

beaten by a guy named Mickey mantle.

Kris Kelso: 00:16:27

So Mickey mantle took the strikeout record away from babe Ruth.

Kris Kelso: 00:16:31

And these are guys that we think of as great athletes, incredible

Kris Kelso: 00:16:34

players hall of Famers, but they knew they understand that.

Kris Kelso: 00:16:39

Striking out that failing at the plate was not something to be avoided.

Kris Kelso: 00:16:43

It was part of the process.

Kris Kelso: 00:16:45

You have to take big swings to hit the ball out of the park, and you're going to

Kris Kelso: 00:16:49

take some risks and you're going to miss some, but I guarantee you, every time they

Kris Kelso: 00:16:53

struck out, they were learning something, they were learning about the pitcher.

Kris Kelso: 00:16:57

They were learning about his tendencies.

Kris Kelso: 00:16:58

They were learning about how that ball was going to come across the plate.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:01

And they were applying that to the next at bat.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:04

Just understanding that failure is not fatal, that there's no failure.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:09

That's going to be the end of your career, the end of your

Kris Kelso: 00:17:12

life, the end of your work.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:14

That failure is a learning process that change in mindset.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:19

When I approach a new situation, now I look at it and say, one of

Kris Kelso: 00:17:23

two outcomes is going to happen.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:24

I'm either going to succeed or I'm going to learn.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:27

Those are the two options.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:29

And as long as I do one of those things, I'm going to get something

Kris Kelso: 00:17:32

great out of this experience.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:33

So don't have to be afraid of that uncertainty.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:37

So that's the first big mindset shift that you've got to adopt to, to

Kris Kelso: 00:17:41

start to overcome imposter syndrome.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:45

The second one is a similar mindset shift about vulnerability.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:49

See imposter syndrome.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:50

Fear of being vulnerable.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:52

It's the fear of opening up.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:54

It's the fear of letting people see who and what you really are.

Kris Kelso: 00:17:58

You mentioned the phrase, fake it till you make it.

Kris Kelso: 00:18:00

And I really disliked that phrase and that idea because there's inherent

Kris Kelso: 00:18:04

dishonesty there, but it also can, it actually will feed your imposter syndrome

Kris Kelso: 00:18:09

when you're portraying something of yourself that you know is not real.

Kris Kelso: 00:18:14

You will feel like.

Kris Kelso: 00:18:16

Because in some ways you are, if you're faking it until you make it.

Kris Kelso: 00:18:20

But instead you can have something that I refer to as humble confidence,

Kris Kelso: 00:18:26

where you recognize and are honest with your limitations and the boundaries of

Kris Kelso: 00:18:32

your knowledge and experience, but you also have the confidence to believe.

Kris Kelso: 00:18:36

You can figure it out.

Kris Kelso: 00:18:37

That learning is an important part of the process and that you're

Kris Kelso: 00:18:41

going to learn your way to success.

Kris Kelso: 00:18:44

You don't have to have every experience already behind you.

Kris Kelso: 00:18:48

One of the things that I realized as I was writing this book, I was

Kris Kelso: 00:18:52

doing a a deep dive on my career, looking backwards at the successes and

Kris Kelso: 00:18:56

failures and the lessons I've learned.

Kris Kelso: 00:18:58

And I suddenly realized.

Kris Kelso: 00:19:01

The times when I was the most insecure, when I was feeling the most in

Kris Kelso: 00:19:06

over my head, those were often the most pivotal moments of my career.

Kris Kelso: 00:19:11

Those are the times when you really great things were happening.

Kris Kelso: 00:19:14

And if I chose to pull back and to shirk away from those situations,

Kris Kelso: 00:19:19

I'd miss out on great opportunities.

Kris Kelso: 00:19:21

But when I leaned into those that's when really big moves.

Kris Kelso: 00:19:25

Happened.

Kris Kelso: 00:19:25

And so you've got to go into those experiences with a humility to not think

Kris Kelso: 00:19:31

that you can just fake it till you make it or that you can do anything at any time,

Kris Kelso: 00:19:37

but also with the confidence to believe that, everything I've ever accomplished

Kris Kelso: 00:19:41

in life every first time accomplishment I've ever had has been proceeded by the

Kris Kelso: 00:19:47

same thing, which is a lack of experience.

Kris Kelso: 00:19:50

Every time you do something great.

Kris Kelso: 00:19:52

You've, hadn't done it before that, and you didn't have the experience

Kris Kelso: 00:19:55

until you leaned in and did it.

Kris Kelso: 00:19:57

And so that humble confidence and changing the definition of failure,

Kris Kelso: 00:20:02

and then being willing to be open about where I have strengths and

Kris Kelso: 00:20:07

weaknesses, where I have experiences.

Kris Kelso: 00:20:09

And I have some lack of experience.

Kris Kelso: 00:20:11

The combination of those things will allow you to go into these new

Kris Kelso: 00:20:15

situations or to take on new clients with a humble confidence that.

Kris Kelso: 00:20:20

Sure.

Kris Kelso: 00:20:21

I may not have done this specific thing that you're asking me to do before, but

Kris Kelso: 00:20:25

look at all the other things I've done for the first time before, and I've

Kris Kelso: 00:20:29

been able to be successful at that.

Kris Kelso: 00:20:32

And I'm confident that I can take this on, or I can hire the right

Kris Kelso: 00:20:35

people with the expertise that's needed to do this job, by the way.

Kris Kelso: 00:20:40

That was one of the secrets to my success in my consulting firm is

Kris Kelso: 00:20:43

for the first, probably six or seven years of that company, I was the

Kris Kelso: 00:20:47

youngest and least educated and least experienced person in that company.

Kris Kelso: 00:20:52

I always hired upgrade.

Kris Kelso: 00:20:54

For myself.

Kris Kelso: 00:20:56

And that gave me the ability to go into a situation and say, I

Kris Kelso: 00:21:00

may not be the expert on this, but I do have an expert on my team.

Kris Kelso: 00:21:03

And if I don't, I'll get one.

Kris Kelso: 00:21:05

And so I'm not faking it till I make it.

Kris Kelso: 00:21:07

I'm saying very openly.

Kris Kelso: 00:21:08

And honestly, this is what we are capable of.

Kris Kelso: 00:21:12

And I believe in the quality and the capabilities of the team

Kris Kelso: 00:21:16

that I've assembled around me.

Kris Kelso: 00:21:17

And that helps me to have that humble conflict.

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:21

That's really good.

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:21

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:22

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:22

Hiring cure weaknesses is always something that yes, benefits,

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:28

benefits companies dramatically.

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:30

And when I see a business owner, that's trying to run every department in

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:36

their company, or they're trying to do be the point person for everything.

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:42

It just, it's not the best scenario.

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:46

I know when it comes to the aspect of fail, in the startup space, there's this

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:52

aspect of failing often failing fast.

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:56

Yes.

Joshua Maddux: 00:21:56

And it's, it goes back into exactly what you just talked about with, the baseball

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:01

analogy aspect, for a venture capitalist.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:05

If they look at one startup and say, oh, this looks like a great idea.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:09

I'll just dump a hundred million dollars into it.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:11

And that's all they dump money into.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:13

They're in trouble.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:15

If they find, 10 different startups to dump money into,

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:19

one of them will be the next.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:22

Uber or, whatever that service is now three or four of them are going

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:27

to just crash and burn immediately.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:30

But for that venture capitalists, they need to get out quick.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:35

They need to make sure they test it.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:37

And if it doesn't work, shut it down or pivot.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:41

And so I think that's something, for me is cool.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:45

It did work.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:46

It didn't.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:47

Let's learn from it.

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:49

And that's, it's been the aspect of what can you take away from that failure?

Joshua Maddux: 00:22:54

And that's where when failure is looked at as a learning experience, I

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:00

think that's another critical element.

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:02

Like you can take so much away I've accidentally

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:06

underquoted projects before, or.

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:09

Yeah, we under quote a project because we didn't fully understand it.

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:13

Or we assumed that the client was going to do X, Y, and Z, and the

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:18

client assumed we were, and you get backwards in a project like that.

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:24

You obviously, it's a contractual obligation you follow through with that.

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:27

But then at the, yeah.

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:29

Back end.

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:30

It's what did we learn?

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:32

We learned that we need to better describe our process or better describe the

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:37

expectations that we have as a business on what the client is or isn't providing.

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:43

And all of those elements will really help not only the failing aspect,

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:48

but also, you continue to learn and the more you learn, the less,

Joshua Maddux: 00:23:54

you feel like you're an imposter.

Kris Kelso: 00:23:56

Yeah, those mistakes are part of the cost of education.

Kris Kelso: 00:24:01

And I've made some six-figure mistakes in my career, but I call those,

Kris Kelso: 00:24:06

six-figure educations and I've got a lot of them that have added up to

Kris Kelso: 00:24:09

success over a long period of time.

Kris Kelso: 00:24:12

But they're painful when they happen.

Kris Kelso: 00:24:14

But you've got to recognize that.

Kris Kelso: 00:24:16

That's part of the entrepreneurial experience is learning

Kris Kelso: 00:24:20

some of those lessons.

Kris Kelso: 00:24:22

And often the more painful ones, the more costly ones are the ones that really stick

Kris Kelso: 00:24:27

with you and benefit you in the long run, because you don't forget those lessons

Kris Kelso: 00:24:31

as easily when they cost you something.

Joshua Maddux: 00:24:34

Yeah.

Joshua Maddux: 00:24:34

So true.

Joshua Maddux: 00:24:35

Awesome.

Joshua Maddux: 00:24:36

I really love the takeaways.

Joshua Maddux: 00:24:37

The, the changing the definition of failure, I think is a huge one.

Joshua Maddux: 00:24:41

Just like really.

Joshua Maddux: 00:24:43

Having that shift.

Joshua Maddux: 00:24:44

And then the vulnerability aspect, you have to be open to overcome the imposter

Joshua Maddux: 00:24:48

syndrome and the humble confidence being aware of your limitations but

Joshua Maddux: 00:24:53

know that you can grow and learn.

Joshua Maddux: 00:24:55

And I think that's so critical, like for my team, I say this,

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:02

probably once a quarter, at least like the day that we stop learning.

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:06

I own a digital agency.

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:07

We're in the web space.

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:08

That web changes daily.

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:11

The day we stop learning is the day we should close the business because

Kris Kelso: 00:25:14

it's changed while we've been having this conversation.

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:16

Exactly.

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:18

And the web has changed and how people connect online has

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:23

changed so much, due to events.

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:28

The pandemic or the.com boom, or, there's so many different elements that

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:33

has changed, how global communications and all that type of stuff works.

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:38

And that goes for every line of business, you look at disruptors in

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:42

industries and all that type of stuff.

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:43

And being open to learning and growing and adapting and doing that, is always

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:49

something that's really good weather, it's imposter syndrome and not like just

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:54

learning and growing is always a positive.

Joshua Maddux: 00:25:58

There's been a ton that we walked through today and unpacked, and I feel

Joshua Maddux: 00:26:01

like there's probably a dozen more stories that you could share on this.

Joshua Maddux: 00:26:07

And there's so much more information, but I do want to walk through real

Joshua Maddux: 00:26:10

quick, like where is a good spot for people to find you online?

Joshua Maddux: 00:26:15

What is the best sort of number one, I'll have all the links to your

Joshua Maddux: 00:26:19

website, Instagram and LinkedIn, all that stuff in the show notes,

Joshua Maddux: 00:26:23

but what is that number one?

Kris Kelso: 00:26:26

Yeah, the number one spot is probably my website, which

Kris Kelso: 00:26:29

is just simply Chris kelso.com.

Kris Kelso: 00:26:31

And I'm easy to find online if you remember that Chris starts with a

Kris Kelso: 00:26:34

K

Kris Kelso: 00:26:35

K R I S K E L.

Kris Kelso: 00:26:36

So,

Kris Kelso: 00:26:37

So yeah, Chris kelso.com there's information there on my coaching work

Kris Kelso: 00:26:41

and some of the keynotes that I deliver.

Kris Kelso: 00:26:43

And also the book is called overcoming the imposter.

Kris Kelso: 00:26:48

And the website for the book is overcoming the imposter.com and it's

Kris Kelso: 00:26:52

available anywhere that books are sold.

Kris Kelso: 00:26:54

So you can find out more about the book there and more about

Kris Kelso: 00:26:57

my specific work at my website.

Kris Kelso: 00:26:59

And I'm also active on LinkedIn and many of the other social sites

Kris Kelso: 00:27:02

that you mentioned and as you said, those will be in the show notes.

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:05

Awesome.

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:05

And then I know you had messaged me a link for overcoming the imposter.com.

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:11

That actually has a free chapter of the book.

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:13

And we were going to put that in the show notes as well.

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:15

So for those who are listening there's a chapter of that in the show notes that

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:19

you'll be able to download and be able to read through that and get a little

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:22

sample, a little more in depth sample.

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:25

On that as well.

Kris Kelso: 00:27:26

And I'll say, I think the chapter that we chose to give away as a

Kris Kelso: 00:27:30

free sample is one of the best chapters.

Kris Kelso: 00:27:32

So you're not getting just a teaser.

Kris Kelso: 00:27:34

That's, the first chapter in the book that all it does is set up the problem

Kris Kelso: 00:27:37

and tell you that you need help.

Kris Kelso: 00:27:38

But it's a really meaty chapter that we'll have some great, powerful takeaways.

Kris Kelso: 00:27:42

So encourage people to go.

Kris Kelso: 00:27:44

Even if you can't pick up the entire book, go get that chapter and read through it.

Kris Kelso: 00:27:47

You'll get a lot out of it.

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:48

Cool.

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:48

It's been awesome having you on the show today.

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:50

I appreciate you coming on, I appreciate the time and your experience in

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:55

business and really opening up on that and just diving into that with us.

Joshua Maddux: 00:27:59

It's been really good to hear this and walk through it.

Kris Kelso: 00:28:02

Yeah.

Kris Kelso: 00:28:02

Thank you, Josh.

Kris Kelso: 00:28:03

I really enjoyed the conversation.

Kris Kelso: 00:28:04

I appreciate the opportunity.

Joshua Maddux: 00:28:06

Awesome.

Joshua Maddux: 00:28:07

Take care.

Kris Kelso: 00:28:08

You too.

Joshua Maddux: 00:28:08

Thanks for listening to this episode of, in the bunker.

Joshua Maddux: 00:28:12

As always we can be found on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter

Joshua Maddux: 00:28:16

at, in the bunker podcast.

Joshua Maddux: 00:28:18

Be sure to share this episode and what you're going to apply from it.

Joshua Maddux: 00:28:23

And how that can affect your business, make sure to tag us in that post so

Joshua Maddux: 00:28:28

we can highlight your journey as well.

Joshua Maddux: 00:28:31

But before you go.