Jon Clayton: Are you struggling with feelings of self-doubt even though you are accomplished?

If so, you are not alone and it's likely to be imposter syndrome.

Did you know that 78% of professionals experience these paralyzing thoughts during their career?

I am joined by imposter syndrome, life coach and fire engineer Jason McDade to learn actionable strategies to combat it.

In this episode of Architecture Business Club, the weekly podcast for small firm founders who want to build their dream business in architecture and enjoyable freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment in what they do.

I'm John Clayton, your host.

Having spent over 20 years working in architecture, I know how hard it can be to explain your services so people truly understand and value what you do.

Many firms struggle with this, but by sharing your stories on podcasts, you can become the trusted voice in your market, grow your brand, and attract much better clients.

We can help you with everything from podcast strategy and launch production and management, podcast hosting and guesting through to promoting and growing your show.

If you'd like to discover how podcasting could benefit your business, click the link in the show notes to book a noob obligation chat about working with me.

Or if you're interested in being a guest on this show, email, John.

That's JO n@architecturebusinessclub.com.

Now let's talk about imposter syndrome.

Jason McDade is a fire engineer and a life coach specializing in imposter syndrome and the impact this is having on professionals working in the construction industry.

He provides one-to-one coaching.

And in person imposter syndrome workshops called the 78% Club, 78% being the first stat that Jason heard about how many people experience imposter thoughts and feelings during their career.

To connect with Jason on LinkedIn, just click the link in the show notes.

Jason, welcome to Architecture Business Club.

It's a pleasure to have you here.

And, um.

Yeah, this is a, this is a topic that I'm really keen to explore with you 'cause it's definitely something that, like, I've definitely experienced it.

So, um, yeah, this is gonna be a really worthwhile discussion today.

Before we dig into it though I always like to ask people what they enjoy doing in the free time outside of the work.

And I know that you enjoy doing field archery, which I know practically ero about.

So could you tell us a little bit about it?

Jason McDaid: Yeah, a field archery, uh, the way I describe it to people, it's like golf with bows and arrows.

So you're, you're in shooting 3D targets.

So like there's some targets are like a six foot black bear, or there might be a turtle who's this size or you know, there's a variety of targets.

You could be shooting anything from 18 meters to meters.

It's all done in a forest, so you're walking through the forest and like golf, you do hole one, hole two in field archery.

You do this and you're walking up mountain slopes and down and shooting over rivers and it's.

Great experience.

It's beautiful to get up on a Sunday morning or a Saturday morning and eight o'clock in the morning, you're walking through the forest sound of eagles and foxes and all sorts of stuff there.

So yeah, it's a, it's a really great, great occupation.

Great for the mind and a very, a great social thing as well.

We do leagues and my league final was on, on Sunday and we actually won.

So it's the, the very, my team won the first thing I've been involved in that I.

Won since I was about 15.

Jon Clayton: Oh, that sounds awesome.

And that, that sounds like so much fun.

Yeah.

I've, um, I'm going to, I'm gonna Google Field Archery after we finish this interview, 'cause that, that sounds like, um, something that, that I would really enjoy.

I bet my son would enjoy

Jason McDaid: Yeah.

Oh, it's great.

Like there's kids there from six, seven years old to 70-year-old people, you know, and they're all in the league together.

They're all there.

You know, you'd have a 6-year-old, a 50-year-old, and it's great.

It really is.

And archery is one of the most basic human things, you know, it's like.

Years old or something like that, you know, so you really feel a bit of a connection back to much changed, different, an arrow.

Jon Clayton: Oh, I love that.

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna check it out.

So, Jason, we, we are gonna talk about imposter syndrome so that we can, we can try and normalize it.

Uh, I think a great place for us to start would just be for you to just explain to us what, what is imposter syndrome, what are your thoughts on what imposter syndrome is?

Jason McDaid: So there, there are a lot of definitions out there about what imposter syndrome is, and there's a lot of what it isn't and stuff.

So none of the definitions really quite hit the mark with me.

So I'd, I like to go with Dr.

Valerie Young.

Her description of the three core traits of an imposter, uh, Valerie Young is the.

In the imposter syndrome field.

She's been working for over 40 years, and so from her research and experience, she's come up with these three common traits.

First one, you believe that you're not as intelligent as capable or as talented as others believe you to be despite they're being evidence to the contrary.

So you can't internalize your success.

Your boss can see it, other people can see it.

You've got a good job, pay rise, but you can't believe that yourself.

The second trait then is that you.

You chalk up your success and your achievements to some external factors.

So it could be a computer glitch.

It could be an admin error, like they've sent the acceptance letter to the wrong guy and some other peer fellow got my rejection letter and you know, there was some mistake or something happened that I got the job.

It.

Is the one that really ties them in is that you live in fear of being exposed for the fraud that you believe you are.

So because you don't believe you're intelligent enough or talented enough to to have got the job, 'cause you attribute your success and achievements to external factors, you believe you're a fraud.

This day come in where you're going to get exposed.

So the email from your boss landing in your inbox, or your boss phone number coming on your phone, or you know, you see your boss coming down the corridor and you're going, oh man, he's gonna call me in now and he is going to tell me you've been caught.

We, we know what you are.

You've been rumbled.

You know, so that's the fear that the imposter lives with is this fear being exposed.

And for me, it was being sent home in humiliation to my family, to go home to my wife and say, yeah, I've, I've been caught out.

I've been sacked, you know, and that's the end set.

We have to leave the house.

We have to, you know, I, I was so far down the road just going, my daughters can't even get married because I, you know, I can't afford their wedding.

If I lose this job, that's me, because who else will hire me?

So that's where the impo, that's third point, ties in the first two.

So you don't believe you're as intelligent as others?

Believe you're.

Evidence to the contrary, and you put down your success to some external factor.

Jon Clayton: Geez, that is, is such a horrible thing to experience yet.

So many of us do experience it at, at some point in our lives and often on a frequent basis.

You've mentioned to me before, and we, we mentioned in the introduction that 78% of people experience imposter syndrome.

Why?

Why do you think it's so common?

Jason McDaid: Um, so the answer again, going back to Valerie Young, she put it in such a good way, is that because we're humans raised by humans, that's why we experience it, because we've all grown up with other people like our parents or teachers or coaches, caregivers, ORs, or.

Our mistakes.

Praise was tied to achievement.

Mistakes were made to sound bad, you know?

So we grew up into adulthood with this kind of, constant definitions of success or failure, and we always were trying to.

To meet these standards and often discouraging remarks can last a lifetime.

You know, you could have heard something casually said by your uncle or a coach or your father, and when you were eight or nine, and it may have just gone with you.

It's, you know, why couldn't you have done better?

Or where was the extra 5%?

So you put your own self worth into your achievement.

And then if you struggled to, if you weren't getting this achievement in later life, if you were one of these people whose parents praised everything they ever done, oh, you're an artist.

Every time you put your hand a with a bit, if you were the kid who off.

Pie to 15 decimal places on your fifth birthday, but your dad just says, oh, get outta the way of the tv.

You know, watching the horse race and all these things can impact it.

So it's a lot of societal or a lot of family background, stuff like that.

But then there's also societal stuff, like if you're a part of minority.

Gender, race, neurodivergent.

You also can carry the weight of representing your whole group.

You know, are you, are you the first kinda blind person to work in the job, be the first person of color in the office?

You know, is everybody going to judge your race on your performance?

You know, so there's a lot of different things like that.

Most people assume that they're the only one feeling it.

And that's the thing with imposter syndrome.

It's, it's such an isolationist feeling.

But when I, as you introduced her or said during the introduction about the 78% club, I said, geez, 78% of people are feeling this.

You know that.

And it, it is that common.

So that led me to go into this research.

Why is it so, and.

Human nature.

It's how we're brought up.

Our parents were brought up, our grandparents who didn't have any idea either about it.

We're here because we're human and the systems we, they're designed to reward performance and vulnerability.

Jon Clayton: Yeah.

Does, does everyone experience it in the same way?

Jason McDaid: No, because there's such a 78% of people experiencing it.

You know, that figure is not set in stone either.

It varies up and down, but imposter syndrome shows up in lots of different ways because it is such a, a number of sources and backgrounds.

So there are five.

Commonly referred to competence types.

That we, we, we set these standards, these un unaccept or unattainable standards for our own competence.

And we, we try and we base our own self worth on that.

So the five competence types are perfectionist.

So if you feel that anything less than a hundred percent is a failure, you know, you got, the whole auditorium is clapping, but one person is sitting looking at their watch and you're gonna, oh, this crap.

So that's the perfectionist.

The expert, which would be my type, who believes they'll never know enough.

I had to keep doing course and course and course, just so that I could go, right.

I'm qualified enough to do.

This is my first podcast appearance, and this lends nicely into the expert because when are you qualified enough?

An imposter syndrome to go on a podcast and talk about it, you know, so I've said I'm qualified enough.

I don't have to go, and I'm not that I'm, oh, I've got a degree in it or anything.

I'm enough with what I know, you know, so it's, I'm not going, I need to do one more course and then I'll call John and I can go on.

So then there's the soloist who thinks that asking for help is failure.

You know, I should be able to do it myself.

If I have to ask for help, then people will think that I'm incompetent and I'll be exposed.

There's the natural genius.

Who thinks they should be able to get everything in the first go?

So you're given a project and if you, if there's something in it you can't work out, you think, oh my God, I'm crap, I'm, I'm incompetent on the work Again, it's like the, so you can't ask for help or taking time to learn something that just doesn't right with you.

The final competence type is the super person with superhuman.

It's largely at attributed to women because, not in a sexist way, but because like the old saying, a woman is expected to work, like she doesn't have a family and she's expected to parent, like she doesn't have a career.

So women can be expected to do the reminding of the kids, making the dinner going, dropping the kids off, collecting them, doing this, doing the washing, you know, all that.

That's not to say that men don't do that, but women have taken on or that role has been feist upon them.

So they feel they have to be a good parent.

I have to be a good engineer.

Good.

the, they're the five competence types and most people will identify with one primarily and bits of others, you know, and they're not set in stone.

But, so knowing your type isn't about labeling yourself, it's just about understanding your patterns and realizing that these are almost coping strategies.

They're not flaws.

You know, we just need to work out why, why we feel we need, we have defined our competence like this.

Jon Clayton: I think, definitely, I think the one that stood out to me, most of how I would identify it would, would perhaps be the perfectionist, but I think there's definitely some of the, the other types that you mentioned that I can see that there's been times when I've been, you know, more aligned with the other types.

So maybe that's kind of the primary one for me.

I would say maybe the youth is a,

Jason McDaid: Yeah, that's the way it is.

You know, you have one dominant really, and then you'll always be able to draw on on others as well.

You know, I'd be a bit of a, a soloist and a natural genius as well, you know, because they're, they're tied into.

My idea of my competence that's going on, I dunno enough.

I dunno that straight away, I dunno enough on it.

I can't ask for help because I've asked for help.

You know?

So it's a snowball effect.

But yeah, the expert, when I read the expert first, I went, that's, that's me a

Jon Clayton: Yeah,

Jason McDaid: hundred percent.

Jon Clayton: no th.

Self.

Okay, so how does it manifest or, or show up in people?

Jason McDaid: So what the.

The competence types.

We have that they're subconscious, we don't really know about them.

And then the, the way that it shows up is we have introduced or developed coping and protection mechanisms to adjust for this.

So say, procrastination is a very common one.

So procrastination as a coping strategy means we never finish something.

We keep putting it off.

Number one, if we don't finish it, it can't get judged.

It can't get reviewed.

It'll get getting put off.

We may get given out to about it, but we haven't been judged, and procrastination, just it's, it allows us to feel like we're doing something and making progress, but we just don't want to get to that finish point because that's the point where our competence is laid bare and we're, we're out.

You know, we're,

Jon Clayton: There's a risk of failure.

It we feel like this.

Oh, what if it's not gonna work?

Uh.

Jason McDaid: that's it.

You're, you're putting your competence up.

It's like going for a review.

I always describe it as like a hedgehog lying on its belly with its little soft underbelly exposed for the eagles to come in and just, you know, you've got all its protective spines are underneath, but you just exposed.

So that's what it's like when you, you expose yourself to, to review or your competence.

So.

Procrastination is one.

Flying under the radar is another.

You know, you just keep low.

Don't put your hand up for new jobs.

Don't say anything.

Don't speak in meeting.

Be the man.

Just coast alongs.

A big one with me was switching jobs, moving targets.

It's called, as you know, moving target is hard to hit.

I called it parachute and that was my own term I came up with before I even knew about imposter syndrome.

And my parachute was always another job.

I had a kept, it was like a, a parachute.

Whenever I.

Felt the net was closing in that I was about to be exposed.

I just jump out the plane and the parachute and.

I would go in and I, it was parachuting and peacocking.

So the parachuting would be jumping out of the, the old job and the peacocking would be landing into the new job with chest puffed out like a peacock.

And the feathers up.

Uh, you know, I, I'm brilliant and I'm great and you get this.

Kinda window of people not really knowing, and then the starts to come in again and Youch.

This denies you of stuff as well.

Denies you of progression within a company, you know, because you can't stay in one company long enough, so you keep joining in at, you know, whatever levels.

People don't find out your skills.

Same with procrastination.

You hold yourself back and you, you might get a badge.

Reputation in the office is somebody who's slower than the other people, uh, flying under the radar.

You know, you're not putting your hand up so people don't see, and you're not in line for the next promotion or the job offer or something, you know, so they really do hold us back, and that's part of the work we're doing.

The 78% club started.

Bootcamps.

It's, uh, one hour a night for three nights in a row.

And it's just to identify the, the coping mechanisms because they're so central to it all.

And just identifying them and working out, you know, almost shaking off your shoulders and kinda going, oh yeah, Jesus, I'm a perfectionist who procrastinates, you know, what's that about?

And just alone breathe and see it.

And as you said, to normalize it.

This doesn't have to be me.

And by doing it in a group setting, we're seeing that we're not the only one in the office.

So the 78% club might be eight outta 10 people.

So if you're in an office of 10 people and you're thinking you're the only one who's crap, really, there's seven others around you who are thinking the same, but nobody's saying it.

So you know, it's about bringing a.

Jon Clayton: Oh, I, I love that.

Thanks for sharing that.

Could you share an example of how you think imposter syndrome might show up for, say, an architect or an engineer?

Jason McDaid: Yeah, like the architecture and engineer, you know, they're, they're design based careers.

You know, you're, especially with architecture, you're given a task to, you know, depending on what stage of your career you're at, you might be given a blank page and told, design the building, or you might be given a, a wall or, you know, design this junction of a wall, you know, so.

You're having to design, so design careers like engineering as well.

'cause you're having to come up with these, especially fire engineering may have to come up with a design.

And when you design something and put it out for review by nature, that's a, a hard stopping moment.

You know, for me it always was annoying.

The, the report review was a nightmare.

It was, here's my competence, please comment on it, you know.

Hedgehog with his belly open, you know, so, and with architecture, you're presenting a design to a client.

You might have worked on it for a couple of weeks.

The, the deadline is coming up and you're, you're almost ready to do it, but you've got this voice going, no, this is good enough to do.

You know, you're in this big architecture company and here's you with this crappy little design, you know?

Especially if you're, say in a, a big company who was winning awards for their architecture.

And you know, I, I was doing a, a talk with a, a games design company who had one of the gods of game design.

He was the owner of the company.

I was going, your staff must feel imposter syndrome because how are they meant to come with their little idea to you going here, this is my idea for a game when.

So it's like that.

These people who are winning awards and are owning their own business, and you're just a, a guy there going, oh, here, here's my plan.

Or you know, maybe they've put something out.

Anybody got any ideas?

You're in the meeting and you're going, oh, I'd love to say this, you know, but you just can't, you can't do it because you're thinking.

That is the stupidest idea anybody's ever going to have said in this room.

And then somebody else says, oh.

Jon Clayton: Yeah, that's interesting.

I think, um, I think people like architects and engineers, architecture, technologists and, and a lot of, um.

Design professionals and creatives, uh, generally that we're often very close to our work.

Particularly if you're doing like, um, if you're like a technical service provider, you could be, you put a lot of yourself into your work, you know, you put a lot of time and energy into it, and because of that, it can be hard when you come to that point where you're presenting it to somebody, either, whether it's to a senior colleague or whether it's directly to the client.

That if you do get some feedback about it, that's maybe not.

Oh, we love it.

It's amazing.

We sometimes struggle to separate us from our work and it's the feedback on the work we can, if there is any negative feedback, we can end up taking it so personally and it's like, oh, I'm terrible at my job.

I, I, I dunno what I'm doing.

I'm, you know, I've been exposed as this chancer that, you know, bumbled his way through his career so far.

And I've been found out now.

And the, my client doesn't like my design, like the world's ending.

It's terrible.

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Jason McDaid: It's when we assign our, or attribute our self worth to this piece of work, you know, to, I'm putting me as a person and everything about me.

Will you please review?

No, it just all depends on your review of this report that has absolutely nothing to do with me as a person or previous anything.

Whatever it may be to this, you get, you do put a lot yourself and because generally your understanding.

It, it almost does in some way represent your level of competence in this thing, you know?

But that doesn't say that even higher up people don't make mistakes.

My boss used to get me to review their reports and I'd find typos.

I'd find errors, you know, and, and we'd talk.

But even still, when they come back to me with my report reviews, and back in the old days when it was done in pen and paper, and.

Turn

Jon Clayton: the dreaded, uh.

Jason McDaid: that.

Jon Clayton: Yeah, the dreaded red pen.

Yeah.

Used to, um, used to use that a lot.

They, well, I used to, when I started out there was a lot of red pen on my drawings when I was doing architectural work.

And then, um, it did get to a point where I'd, you know, I'd get the red pen out for some of the colleagues work.

It didn't feel so bad when it was a bit both ways, you know?

How can we tell if the.

The feelings that we're experiencing, like how can we tell if that is just like healthy self-doubt or if it's actually imposter syndrome?

Jason McDaid: Yes.

That's a really important question because imposter syndrome.

It's in the media a lot.

If you're discussing it, you know, if you're nasty, you won't see these discussions.

But a lot of people are on saying, you know, imposter syndrome's a good thing because it keeps you knowing you're on the right direction, or means you're trying, you're pushing yourself out of your comfort one.

So imposter syndrome's a good thing.

The difference between healthy self-doubt and imposter syndrome goes back to that first question with the answer about the fear of it.

So self-doubt says, this is new.

So you know, it makes sense that I'm unsure.

So if you're.

If you've got a promotion to a totally new level and you're nervous and, oh, what?

What if I can't do it?

That's healthy self-doubt because you're going into a new level.

You're new responsibilities, new people looking at you, expecting stuff from you.

It's only natural that you feel this self-doubt.

Self-doubt can be lessened over time.

So the first month might be, oh geez, what's happening second month?

You know, oh, I think I'm getting the hang of that third month.

You know, things are going better.

You're receiving good feedback and you're going, oh, that's good.

They're happy enough with me so far, you know, so.

Healthy self doubt decreases with time and with feedback.

So because you can internalize the feedback, just like you mentioned in your last comment about you get a bit of constructive criticism or something, or a red pen in your report and you take it on, no, and that's, you know, you're cut my soul open with that.

Health, healthy self-doubt can take praise.

It can even take a bit of, you know, criticism is hard for anybody, but it doesn't break it down.

But imposter syndrome is, they've made a mistake picking me for this job.

I was clinging on to their life with just trying to handle the old job, and now they've put me into a new one.

I'm a fraud.

It's going to take, you know, it's only a matter of time before I'm found out and you're living in that fear.

So the healthy self-doubt is natural.

It's a good thing.

And it, it's like, yeah, it makes sense that I'm feeling this, you know, or I'm the first person in my family to go to college.

Yes, that can make sense that I'm feeling a bit anxious about it because you know, the family are.

It's, it's one of those things that healthy self-doubt should decrease.

Imposter syndrome will increase, and imposter syndrome even gets worse with praise.

'cause if somebody says, oh, well done, and you're going on, no, it says, I, I only got that because I overworked it, but in three weeks work into it.

Or I'd done something or I flipped it or something and now I've got a good response from it.

Now I have to match that again the next time.

And I don't know how I've done it the first time.

You know, even though you've done it outta your good work and you got a good response, but now you've put this pressure on of there's a standard.

Now I can't fall below that.

So you have to work even harder and harder and keep going, and the imposter syndrome builds until with me the worst.

The lowest point for me was standing at a roundabout, a little small roundabout in Galway, a little narrow.

One was just paint on the road, little bump, so it wasn't a big thing, and there was a double decker bus coming along.

Flying along and flying.

My thoughts going through my head was, if this bus driver loses this even just slightly, he'll just clean me out of it on the corner and I was going, you know what?

That would be the end of all this stress.

That would be it.

All over.

My family would be sorted out.

They'd have my insurance policy, everything would be over, and I didn't step out of the way.

And that to me is imposter syndrome.

And all that had brought on all the depression and the burnout and everything culminated in me standing there taking my chances that a bus driver was going to take the roundabout.

Well, and he did.

Off he went oblivious to the moment that he had just been involved in, you know?

Um, but that's where imposter syndrome goes.

Self doubt goes, yeah, we hope this works.

So

Jon Clayton: Oh, geez.

Well, look, thank you for sharing that personal story there, Jason.

That that, I mean, for this to have been.

Something for you that's affected you so much to be in that kind of position where you'd have those thoughts going through your head, that's pretty scary.

Um, but I'm so glad that you are in the place that you are now

Jason McDaid: yeah.

Jon Clayton: that you know, you're actually positioned to be able to, you know, you've, you've overcome that and you've now actively helping out other people that are struggling with similar issues and, um, I think that's amazing.

Jason McDaid: Yeah.

You know, that's what's led me to hear that point was basically why I'm here now.

After that is I went, I got help, went to therapy, done different things, found life coaching and yeah, and I found imposter syndrome and IT imposter syndrome allowed me to tie the other things I described in one place, my journey down into the darkness, and there was depression, there was burnout.

There was this.

Imposter I described as the cloak that I wore on this, you know.

Jon Clayton: Hmm.

Yeah.

So if somebody's experiencing this, which no doubt they are, if someone's listening to this and they've experienced some of these, IM, uh, feelings of imposter syndrome.

What can a person do to help themselves?

I mean, if you've got any quick tools that you can, you can share.

Jason McDaid: Yeah, like a lot of imposter syndrome work is about reframing, so it's reframing our thoughts.

That's one thing we have to know about imposter syndrome is that it's it's thoughts, it's thought patterns.

If this happens, then I think this, and then my body reacts like that, and it's a lot of central nervous system and fight, and so it's basically reframing.

Our thoughts.

So I can, I can do a quick little exercise with you if you, if you want.

So it's just a kind of a three question, uh, little tool I would call it.

So if you can think of a recent moment where you felt like an imposter or fraud.

It could be a meeting, a mistake, a challenge, something that happened.

Jon Clayton: Okay.

So, I'm trying to think of a good example.

So I suppose I've relatively recently started working with other companies to produce podcasts for them.

So other companies and organizations and um, when I was first asked to do that, there was definitely some thoughts there of, you know, those sort of feelings of imposter syndrome.

Jason McDaid: So we'll go with that.

So now the first question is, what's the main story that you're telling yourself?

What's the negative voice?

That.

Jon Clayton: So, okay.

So in that context, the negative voice would be, well, well, I'm still just a well-meaning amateur at this.

You know why?

Why would anybody want to invest their money in me in to help them in that capacity?

Because there's, there's other other production companies out there that have been going for, you know, like over a decade and, well, I've only been podcasting for well about 18 months.

So like, who am I to, to, offer that service and to, to get paid to do that for all the businesses and organizations.

Jason McDaid: Yeah, so I think your first line in it was probably the C cleanser.

I'm just a, a well meaning amateur.

Was that, did I get that right?

So, so we'll go with that.

So.

I'm just a well-meaning amateur.

So question two is, is this 100% true?

A hundred percent of the time.

So if you take emotions out of it or hunches or anything and look at it objectively, are you just a well-meaning amateur?

So you know.

What's your what you, you have 18 months of podcast and experience.

You know, you've got dozens and dozens of episodes, so is that a hundred percent true?

Are you just a welling, amateur, factually only.

Jon Clayton: Fac, uh, fac.

Factually, no.

Factually, most.

Most podcasters don't get beyond about six or seven episodes, and I've been doing this week in, week out, we're at like, you know, 80, I dunno, 85 plus episodes now without missing a beat for the last 18 months.

And I've been living and breathing it every week for, you know, be not far off two years now.

Jason McDaid: So would you be, would you consider yourself factually to be a well-meaning amateur based on that?

Jon Clayton: when not, no,

Jason McDaid: No, actually, so no.

Jon Clayton: you put it like

Jason McDaid: yeah, when you look at it objectively, you take the, the hunches, the emotions, the, the, everything else there.

Your, your negative thought pattern was, you know, oh, I'm just, well, I amateur, but you go, oh, hold on a minute.

I've been doing this.

I've outlasted so many other podcasters.

I'm living and breathing it.

I can see even smiling.

I can see even You've always got a sense of pride in you that.

You seem to be kinda almost going Yeah, mostly doing quite well at this.

So, you know, so you've, you've answered that.

Is it a hundred percent true, hundred percent of the time?

No, I think we would go with that.

So the third question then, if a friend or a colleague came to you in a similar situation with a similar issue and they told you their story on this well amateur, and you knowing them, what would you say to them?

What would your advice be to them?

Jon Clayton: Oh, well that, that's a good question.

Well, I think if I, if I can remember it, I would work through this little exercise with them to help them to, to reframe their thoughts.

And I would probably, I'd probably ask them some questions about, um, the, the particular thing that they were thinking about.

I would be asking some questions to try and find some evidence to the contrary to try and challenge them on it, to say, well, actually, there's all this other evidence here that would tell me that that's actually not true all the time or not true at all.

Jason McDaid: Hmm.

Yeah.

You know, you're on 86 podcasts and the rest are on Peter and I at 12.

You know, you, you're confidently and competently doing it.

Yeah.

You, you interrogate them and you, you try and challenge their thought pattern and cut all the emotion out of it.

Cut all as say the hunches, the feelings, the or what if factually looking at objectively, is that true?

And generally most people go, yeah, you know, that's the advice I would give to my friend, you know?

Yeah.

Don't be stupid.

One of, one of my big exercises, it actually 12 and, and.

The very last line of it, well, I think I might have told you this before.

I won't say the F word in it, but it was stopping an idiot.

That was my advice to myself.

Extra long.

These thoughts, they're just thoughts and we have the power and the capability to change them.

So this kinda exercise, you know, just for the sake of this podcast, it's nice and short.

It's three, three questions, but it's, it is so powerful.

It, it's changed an awful lot for me, just this

Jon Clayton: Mm.

I love that.

It, um, it reminds me of a, a conversation I had with, um, Mark Franklin recently on the podcast.

He talked about the four fears of business ownership.

I.

And, uh, I heard him talk at a conference recently and, and he talked about which version of the story are you, are you listening to, you know, is it the emotional version or is it the factual version?

Um, in the context of, there might be some thing that happened in your life and you know, if you sort of.

Looking at it from that emotional point of view, you can have all of those feelings that are then dictating what direction your life goes in afterwards and what choices you're making.

And, and actually it's like, well, it is this just, you know, is this just my emotions playing havoc here?

Is this actually what really happened?

Is this actually the factual version of it?

Um, so yeah, it's just another way to kind of reframe things.

Jason McDaid: reframing it.

Jon Clayton: Yeah, this has been a really good conversation, Jason.

But we want to try and wrap things up now.

So what would be the main thing that you'd like everyone to take away from our conversation?

Jason McDaid: Um, I suppose the main thing is that you're not alone.

The 78% club, you know, it's, it, I didn't get the figure.

It's not the 1% club, the 2% club.

There's so many people out there feeling like this, so you're not alone.

And the isolation of it for me was the hard part because I.

But knowing that there are other people there that's that and experiencing the same thing.

And that it's, it's false thoughts.

You know, it's, it's when you do it like that little exercise, is that actually true?

And you go, no, it's not a, like, I'm quite a experienced fire engineer, you know, I've done football stadiums, high-rise buildings, this, that, the other, you know, and once at a Christmas party, I overheard my boss and Jason's a, a really experienced fire engineer.

I left the Christmas party half an hour later and I handed him a notice a month later because I was going, oh my God, why?

What's all this about?

It just it, I thought that it was just me.

They were going to catch me out and so it's, imposter syndrome isn't a personal failing, it's a human response to pressure, comparison to societal, the way society is.

You know, it's not good, you know, there's a lot of people.

Saying that imposter syndrome is a thing to keep women down, and it's a thing to keep, you know, but it's, they're saying, why aren't we fixing the system?

But we're not trying to fix the system with this.

We're just trying to allow the person to see that they're not to blame and they're not, they're not as bad as they believe themselves to be, and it's to, you know, allow us to accept the praise or accept.

The job offer and go.

So you don't need to fix yourself.

You just need better tools, better language and support.

7% Club is about, about bringing people together to normalize it.

And just let them know that they're not all, you know, incompetent.

It's, we can't all be incompetent, you know, it's, the world would collapse if the, if the 78% were actually incompetent.

So, and I think a

Jon Clayton: true.

Jason McDaid: yeah, I think a lot of the other 22 or whatever it is, percent are probably laying as well.

Jon Clayton: Yeah, quite possibly.

Um, was the there anything else that you wanted to say about the topic that we haven't already covered?

Jason McDaid: Um, no, I don't think so.

You know, I could talk for hours about it.

I could just go into any one of those questions and just, you hit record and talking.

No, I think if, if anybody wants to know more about it, feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Send me a message, I'll reply to everybody's messages, you know, and just, I love talking about it because of my personal experience with it.

It's something that I, I deeply connect with, with other people.

And, you know, I'm happy to talk with anybody at any time about it, you know, so feel free to just get in touch if you have any questions or anything about it.

And yeah, I'm always happy to talk.

Jon Clayton: That's great.

Thanks for that Jason.

Um, just one last thing I wanted to ask.

I love to travel and to discover new places and I wondered if you could just share one of your favorite places and what you love about it.

Jason McDaid: Um, this is probably the question I've struggled with most outta the, the whole thing.

So I, I never got a chance to do much traveling.

Uh, went to Australia years ago, back before everybody else was there and loved that and came back, got married, had kids, done the tenor roofs and the different things like that.

So never gotta do much traveling, but one thing I do love is getting out in nature.

And like with the, the, the archery.

But I love being in storms.

I love standing outside in a storm.

In the wind, not, not one of these people goes out in a category or category a, a storm or a red warning standing on the pier.

But I love, I love going down to the beach and say an orange warning where it's not too dangerous.

I'm just standing and feeling the waves smashing off the prom.

Spray landing.

And then I think just that, to me, I, something about standing in a storm, especially near the sea, I think is just such a beautiful thing.

So if you haven't stood on a beach in the storm, in a storm, that's my recommendation for you to, to go and experience that.

Just the power of nature blowing the.

Jon Clayton: Oh, that's so cool.

In a safe way.

Yeah.

In a safe way.

Yeah.

Um, you do feel very connected with nature when you do things like that.

I know that when I've, um, been out hill walking, uh, in the late district and the weather has turned and then it's got really blustery or rainy and on, on one hand, you know, there's a part of you that's thinking.

You know, I wish it was sunny, but then actually experiencing it, it, I dunno.

There's, um, as I say, there's that connection to nature of it.

There's also real drama to it as well.

It feels quite exciting,

Jason McDaid: Yeah, it's that.

Jon Clayton: Um, yeah.

Yeah, that's it.

Jason McDaid: I think one of my favorite times years ago was about 15 years ago in Donal, and from, it went down to minus 18 for about three weeks or a month, and the snow was kinda up past your knees and stuff, and I used to have to walk into work and this, and my eyelids were freezing together when it.

Thrill of you and nature and you know, so that's, that to me is, where I like to travel.

Someday I'll, I'll get the travel and my kids are older now, so I might start getting places.

I did go to Italy recently and went to Venice, and for anybody who's into.

History.

I, I've never been anywhere like Venice for feeling like you're back in the plague time with the little old crooked walls and alleyways.

And I loved that.

I wasn't over near the canals at all.

I was down walking through these little back alleys on my own and kinda getting lost and like the walls were kinda here and their bent.

So yeah, that, uh, I love reading about history and about the plague, and so just experiencing that, uh.

Jon Clayton: Oh, that's really cool.

Jason, thank you so much for joining me today.

Really appreciate you, um, having a chat with me about this, uh, important topic.

If people want to find out a little bit more about what you do, do you wanna just remind everyone, um, your, your website where we, where they can find you there?

Jason McDaid: Yeah, it's inner groove coaching.com.

So inner groove coaching is my coaching umbrella and the 78% club is my imposter syndrome niche or baby or whatever, you know, just it's come outta that.

So.

Send me a message.

Jon Clayton: Fantastic.

Thanks again Jason.

Jason McDaid: Thanks John.

Thanks me on, been.

Jon Clayton: Next time I'm joined by Rachel Stance to talk about how to use your website like a magazine.

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