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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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Speaker 1: tip is that if you are prone to sweeping negative

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Speaker 1: self talk, as in I'm incompetent, I'm a failure, try

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Speaker 1: substituting the word banana for those weighted words and see

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Speaker 1: what happens. While this might sound ridiculous, you just might

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Speaker 1: be surprised at the outcome. Today's tip comes from Maura

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Speaker 1: ERNs Melae's new book, The Anxious Achiever, Turn your Biggest

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Speaker 1: Fears into your leadership Superpower. Many people suffer from some

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Speaker 1: form of anxiety, and some of those folks are going

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Speaker 1: to wind up in leadership roles. Mora asserts that it

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Speaker 1: is possible to manage anxiety and leadership and turn the

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Speaker 1: care and concern that are sometimes at the root of

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Speaker 1: anxiety into good things for your team while climbing through

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Speaker 1: the ranks of anything. Feedback is inevitable, Indeed, it's critical.

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Speaker 1: None of us is born perfect and we all need

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Speaker 1: to improve. Nonetheless, negative feedback can be hard to hear.

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Speaker 1: As Moura puts it, we make mistakes, don't hit sales goals,

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Speaker 1: fall short of targets, misread and mismanage situations. That's just life.

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Speaker 1: It happens when anxiety is in the picture. Feedback can

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Speaker 1: trigger such intense imposter feelings that, as Mora says, we

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Speaker 1: just want to go hide. People start making sweeping self

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Speaker 1: talk statements like I'm incompetent, or I'm a terrible leader,

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Speaker 1: or no one wants to work for me, and so forth.

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Speaker 1: But it is possible to diffuse these negative feelings and

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Speaker 1: get some distance from them. Negative self talk relies on

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Speaker 1: powerful words that are designed to make you feel terrible.

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Speaker 1: But words are just words. Mora quotes doctor Russ Harris,

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Speaker 1: one of the world's foremost experts on acceptance and commitment therapy,

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Speaker 1: as saying that earlier in his life, his own impostor

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Speaker 1: syndrome would show up any time he made a trivial mistake,

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Speaker 1: and he would berate himself with the words I'm incompetent.

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Speaker 1: As a doctor, this was problematic to think, as it

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Speaker 1: interfered with helping solve people's health problems. Nothing worked, Morris

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Speaker 1: says until Harris learned to detach from his thoughts. He

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Speaker 1: realized that the I'm incompetent story was a mental reaction

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Speaker 1: that showed up automatically, and it was no different from

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Speaker 1: the thousands of other thoughts passing through his mind every day.

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Speaker 1: So he came up with this idea. He would identify

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Speaker 1: the negative thought that hooked him repeatedly. You can do

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Speaker 1: this too. Whatever your equivalent of I'm incompetent happens to be,

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Speaker 1: then substitute the word banana. So I'm a failure becomes

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Speaker 1: I'm a banana, I'm incompetent becomes I'm a banana. You

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Speaker 1: get the picture. Does this make you feel silly? Well? Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: But as Mora notes, I'm a banana is about as

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Speaker 1: truthful as I'm incompetent. You have no doubt demonstrated your

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Speaker 1: competence on all sorts of things through life, and as

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Speaker 1: your mind immediately springs to note that no, you are

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Speaker 1: not a banana, perhaps that thought process can help surface

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Speaker 1: evidence that you aren't incompetent either. Does impostor syndromes start

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Speaker 1: to lose its sting after the hundredth time you've replaced

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Speaker 1: I'm incompetent with I'm a banana. Perhaps I'll note here

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Speaker 1: that none of this means that people can't genuinely seek

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Speaker 1: to improve on various dimensions. Critical feedback serves a purpose,

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Speaker 1: but there is a huge difference between noting that my

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Speaker 1: team members largely express that they want me to run

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Speaker 1: tighter meetings and here are some strategies I can try

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Speaker 1: with thinking I'm incompetent. So if you find yourself repeatedly

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Speaker 1: berating yourself with broad negative statements, try the banana trick

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Speaker 1: and see what happens. You might just be able to

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Speaker 1: end a negative spiral and find practical ways to move forward.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and

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Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our tax Hey everybody,

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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me

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Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with

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Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod

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Speaker 1: that's B the number four, then Breakfast p o D.

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Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: Podcasts at iHeartMedia dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled

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Speaker 1: out with all the letters. Thanks so much, should I

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Speaker 1: look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

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Speaker 1: favorite shows