Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Have you ever questioned whether you truly belong in your leadership role? Do you downplay your achievements, second guess your decisions, or fear that one day people will find out you're not as capable as they think? Well, that's imposter syndrome at work. In this episode I sit down with Damon Lemby, CEO of Learn it, to break down his four step process for conquering imposter Syndrome and stepping into leadership with confidence. Damon shares personal stories, practical strategies, and the mindset shifts that transformed his own leadership journey. If self doubt has ever held you back, this episode is a must. Listen.
Damon, welcome to the Cultural Leadership Podcast. How are you, buddy?
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Brandon, it's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: And it feels like we haven't spoken that long ago. I actually guest on your podcast a little bit of time ago, so it's great to have you on Cultural Leadership, mate. Really great to talk again.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: And like I told you before we came on, I really enjoyed our conversation when we met the first time. So this is great. I've been looking forward to it.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Ah, mate, me too. So look, we're going to talk about imposter syndrome and conquering imposter syndrome today, but if you can just give our viewers, our listeners, a bit of a background on Damon Lemby, where you're at, what got you to where you're at today, and a little bit about LearnIt, the company that you lead as well, buddy.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Thanks. So I'm Damon Lemby, CEO of Learn it, which is a live learning platform. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Quick story about me is I grew up big sports fan. I'm out here American football, basketball, baseball. And by the time I was a sophomore in high school, I realized that if I was going to play either professionally or in college, baseball was my ticket. And I went all in on baseball. Worked out pretty well for me. I was a high school All American my senior year and I also got drafted by the Atlanta braves in the 13th round. This is way back in 1990, Brandon. So I'm kind of dating myself here and it was really my first big decision.
My parents were really cool about it and they said, you know, do you want to, whatever you want to do, do you want to go play baseball professionally or do you want to go to college? I chose the college route and it was my first big thing around leadership. I chose college because the coach had this moonshot goal at Pepperdine University, a small school, that they're going to win the college World Series. And so I went there, I got hurt, I left. But they won the College World Series, and we could back up and talk about any of that. So it shows you that you can set moonshot goals and. And go for it. I ended up playing at Arizona State. I got to play the College World Series there. I was getting ready to be drafted again. Life happens. You don't get drafted. And here I am, 22 years old, not sure what I'm capable of doing, if my skills were even transferable. And that's where I started off at Learn It. We could talk all about that. And I've been at learn it for 30 years, and learn it is a live learning platform, and that's upskilled over 2 million people over the past three decades. And customers turn to us. It's all B2B customers turn to us when they're looking to upskill new managers. You know, it's a different skill set, obviously, from being an individual contributor to a new manager or if a team is struggling with communication, you know, we can help them with that. And a lot of times it's just a great way to help with retention is offering soft skills and hard skills training. So in a very quick nutshell, that's who I am and what we do.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: And from memory, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was. It was your dad that started Learn It. So was it one of those situations where, look, the life happened and dad's got this business and how about I go into it? And you had no understanding or no expectation. All of a sudden you've been running the business in X amount of time?
[00:03:37] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, my entire life at the Point was just dedicated to being a baseball player. I never had a formal job. I mean, I was lucky enough to get a full scholarship and play all over the world, even as a high schooler and then in college. And so when my baseball career ended, I was really fortunate in the fact that my family had a hotel chain and real estate and all these businesses. But my dad also at the time, started this little company called Learn It. And at first it was a computer training company. And like a lot of great entrepreneurs, Brandon, what he did was he took a class somewhere. He thought it was stale, boring. Brought one of my sisters, dragged one of my sisters, and he said, there's got to be a better way to do this. And this is probably early 90s, when computers, like he said back then, was hot. You know, it's kind of a new thing. And he said, said, I want to offer short classes that are 90 minutes in length that anybody can go to where the instructors are engaging and not in a sterile environment like this training class was. And so it just happened for me that my baseball career ended. Learn it was starting. I was intimidated. I doubted myself that I had any skills. So I didn't want to go to the big real estate company or anything else that we had. So I took the job at Learn it as a receptionist and for two reasons. One is I didn't want to be this guy who came in and his daddy put him at, you know, a senior level, you know. And two, like I said, I was unsure of my skills. So I rolled up my sleeves as a receptionist and I kind of swallowed my pride. And I just started there and it was an incredible experience. And I think this is great for any leaders, you know, especially coming into a new organization. I taught classes, I, I did sales. I even helped out with it. And it really helps you become empathetic with the individuals who are in those roles to kind of understand what their day to day looks like, what those roles are like. And I really think that helped me out a lot. Five years into it, the CEO we had wasn't, you know, wasn't working out. They were looking for somebody else. I kind of threw my hat in the ring, said, look, I've taught classes, I've done sales, I've closed some of our biggest deals. Give me a shot. My dad and the rest of the guys were like, hey, look, let's give the kid a shot. And here I am.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: The rest is history. As they say.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: The rest is history.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: And what's just so people get a perspective on the fantastic journey you've had and the hard work you put in in growing this business from what to what, what, what did that business look like when you took it over and what is it now?
[00:06:00] Speaker B: When I took it over, we offered like Windows 95 classes, just public classes. People would come to downtown San Francisco. I mean our revenue was probably been.
[00:06:11] Speaker A: A lotus 1, 2, 3 as well. Was there?
[00:06:13] Speaker B: No, no, no, we didn, we did have WordPerfect. And one of my favorite classes though, Brandon, was this was when the Internet first started. So we had a class that was necessary net. It was 25 bucks and you get an AOL disc and a sandwich. And a lot of times this was people's first experience with logging onto Internet and you get that sound and yeah, so that's where we started off. And you know, one thing about my dad was he didn't build like a five year business plan. He's like, this is the idea I have. Let's just. We'll put some money behind it. Let's just jump in and iterate as we go. And so that's kind of what we did. And it kind of evolved over time where our first big deal we ever closed was somebody who picked up a flyer on the street. We used to pass out flyers and it was somebody from Chevron and they said, we're migrating from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. I've got 500 people that I want to train. Is that something you could do? And literally I thought it was like an ex girlfriend playing a joke on me because I was like, training 500 people. I'm like, yeah, we can make it happen from there. It showed me that, hey, there's some corporate training out there. So we kind of hired a couple salespeople and it kind of evolved from being a computer training company to about eight years later, one of our biggest customers since 1998 was Gap. You know, Gap Inc. The retail brand, but you know, their headquarters. And they just said, look, we wish, you know, we already give you our training budget for Microsoft Office and everything like that. Wouldn't it be great if learn it offered classes in time management, critical thinking, having difficult conversations, and said, yeah, maybe that would be a great idea. So we kind of jumped into the soft skills. And it was tough for a couple of years because, you know, we were seen as a brand that was a computer training company. And we wanted to evolve into an overall holistic learning and development company, partner for organizations. And so people were like, well, I don't want somebody teaching HTML and the next day teaching critical thinking. But we got through that. And now I would say we went from having a couple classrooms at the time we expanded to like probably eight or 10 locations. We had some good success and some bad success. Well, actually not success. That wouldn't be success.
But now we're almost all virtual. And I would say, you know, we probably run 20, 30 workshops a day throughout the world. And I would say 80% of what we do is soft skills. We still do some hard skills, and about 90% is virtual, 10% in person. So it's evolved. And we went from doing less than a couple hundred thousand dollars a year to close to eight figures in sales. Close. Yeah.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Well done. Congratulations on your journey too, mate. And like a good entrepreneur or what I'd say a thriving entrepreneur, you also make time for your family and make sure the businesses work around that. We put this back a little bit so you could attend the T practice. So it's great to, great to see. There's got to be that balance. It's just not all work and no play. Right?
[00:09:12] Speaker B: Well, I didn't get married until I was in my mid-40s and I was also, I grew up and I was very lucky to have wonderful parents. You know, I mean, my dad, even though this, you know, super successful businessman, he was always home in the evening and focused on his kids and our family and that was a great role model. My mom was like head of the pta, you know, super supportive. And I'm the oldest of four kids and one of the reasons why I think that, you know, I mean, we're far from perfect and we've had our challenges, but we're good kids and good humans is because our parents taught us the difference between right and wrong and we're present. And you know, I think part of having kids at an older age, I've got a, you know, I'm 52 and I got a three year old and a seven year old, but I don't want to miss these.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: You are a sucker for punishment, mate, aren't you?
[00:10:03] Speaker B: I am, but I don't want to miss, you know, I mean, like we talked about before, business is super important. I love what I do. I love my team at Learn It. I love helping our customers. But I want to be present and part of my big part of my kids life and a good husband and father and give back to the community. So do my best.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: And you're a positive role model. That's the key that we spoke about off recording as well. Diving or honing in on the topic of imposter syndrome and you touched on it in your journey. If I can split it between maybe self doubt and imposter syndrome, do you see a difference of the two? And if so, like, what is that difference?
[00:10:44] Speaker B: You know, that's a great question and I think that there is a difference. I look at self doubt as more being temporary or situational and maybe it comes around for a new challenge or a new project, something you haven't done before. And maybe you have some limiting beliefs about whether you can get it done, but it could be very positive in the sense if you're able to get out of your comfort zone and just go for it and do it and work through those self doubts. And one of the ways I think to do that is kind of reflect back on some of your past successes that you had. Like, hey, I've done this before, I've had success at this before and just looking at some of those past wins. So that's why I look at self doubt for imposter syndrome. I tend to think it's more like identity based where, you know, it's like, it's not like, can I do this? It's like, am I even capable of being here? You know, if I'm promoted into a new role as a leader or I get hired in, into a company, it's like, do I even belong? Am I even good enough? And so if I had to split the difference between self doubt and imposter syndrome, I think that's how they're different.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a great perspective. I love the fact that you spoke about identity. It's really imposter syndrome is a, is a deeper thing, isn't it? And before we I guess get into the depth of that, what do you see playing out in front of you when you see more imposter syndrome? I want to build a bridge between. Because often people don't, they may not be sitting there and say, oh, I've got imposter syndrome. There's certain problems or certain mistakes they might be making or whatever that are becoming obvious. And someone like you that's got some experience around it, you say, hey, I think that's rooted in a bit of imposter syndrome. So what does that look like from what you've seen?
[00:12:25] Speaker B: What it looks like from what I've seen is. And it has a lot to do, I think sometimes with identity and you know, how you're perceiving yourself to be or whatever.
But when it comes to imposter syndrome, I think a lot of times people don't give themselves enough credit for what they're capable of doing or underappreciate the skills that they have. And you know, I look at it from the other side. I think whether you're a parent, a coach or a leader, Brandon, one of the most important things you can do is help see if somebody has self doubt or imposter syndrome and help them realize and understand the achievements that they have had and that the skills that they do have and what they are capable of doing. So I think that plays a lot of times into imposter syndrome.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: In the hybrid working world, I've seen too many business owners and their businesses suffer because of poor performing employees leading to below average results. If you want to improve your employees performance to deliver consistent results for your business, you have to master one on one meetings. The doors to our master one on one meetings training program are opening soon. I'll teach you how to improve employee performance and deliver consistent results using one on one meetings to be one of the first people notified. When the doors open, go to leaderbydesign AU waitlist. Don't wait. Sign up now. And with you again, this 22 year old person, you know, you've done the sporting work and had a lot of success there. Whatever you determine a success. But then coming in not knowing, it's a corporate, small corporate type environment. But you know the future is at your feet. When has self doubt come in for you?
And if it has, when has imposter syndrome played out?
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Well, can I take it back a step where I first really experienced imposter syndrome?
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: The first time I really experienced imposter syndrome was when I first got to Pepperdine. Now I've played all over the world, all over the country, but when I got there, all of a sudden I was like, am I even good enough to be here?
Because these guys are the best of the best out here. And it really paralyzed me, you know, I mean, I didn't want to go to practice.
I just, I was homesick, I missed being at home and I was just really uncomfortable. And it really hit me that was imposter syndrome. When we had our first performance review, it was during the fall baseball practice and our coach, hall of Fame coach Andy Lopez, called me into our meeting and I sat down and before I even had a chance to say hello, he said, damon, when I recruited you to come to Arizona, to Pepperdine, I did so because I believe that you had the talent to be a strong middle lineup hitter and a great asset for our team. And then he said, but unfortunately, son, I don't think you have what it takes to play Division 1 baseball. And he crossed his arms and he, and he sat back and, you know, my first reaction was, I mean, how do I get out of here? You know, how do I, how do I, how do I just go home and, you know, go to junior college or do something? And before I had a chance to even respond, he leaned forward and he pointed at me and he said, that's not what I think about you. That's not what our coaching staff thinks about you. The problem is, that's what's in your head.
You're telling yourself you don't belong here and you're not good enough and everybody else sees that you are, but there's only so much we can do for you. You're going to have to find a way to fight through and get over that. Otherwise you are going to struggle not only at college and in baseball, but with the rest of your life. And that was something that really stuck with me that I've thought about throughout my personal and professional career.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: I'm so glad you did take it back further than where I was leading you to, because I have the fundamental belief, based on my own experience, that sports is such a good training ground. Actually, I think one of the best, if not the best training ground for business owners, business leaders, anyone interested in leadership. And I think you've just demonstrated through that experience. So what was your, what was your next move mate on the chessboard?
[00:16:39] Speaker B: So I just want to really agree with you, with you on what you said about sports. And we don't have to get to the level that you or I played in. You know, for you listening out there, who have kids, get your kids involved even in, in elementary school or in high school, there is so much you learn playing sports about collaboration, discipline, persistence, learning agility, and it will benefit you throughout your life. My next move then was, I would like to tell you, I left the office, I was all pumped up and I turned things around. I didn't, I got hurt. You know, I got hurt. I left and sure enough, guess what? They won the College World Series that year, which shows you that you can set moonshot goals and go for it, even with a little school like Pepperdine. I was fortunate enough to get a full ride, full scholarship to Arizona State a year later. And a lot of people said to me, don't go to Arizona State. There are going to be 17 guys trying out for your position. Go to a small school where you could play and get your college degree and move on with your life. But I said to myself, look, this is my last chance with baseball. You know, it's my last chance. What do I really have to lose?
What's the worst case scenario? I don't make the team.
But that was such a great leadership lesson for everything else was because it taught me that just going in and working hard and going for it and getting out of your comfort zone was a, was, was a huge deal. So that was really my next move in life was leaving everything I had on the table and going for it at Arizona State and putting behind the imposter syndrome. And I didn't realize that at the time, but from that I built this four step framework that I've used every time that I've dealt with imposter syndrome or helped try to coach people with it. And I, you know, it's one of the Things. I wrote a book called the Learn It All Leader and I would say it's probably the number one thing people want to talk to me about is how do you go through and overcome imposter syndrome?
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Which it seems like the obvious next question. And we will go there into that four step framework. But have you ever thought and reflected back on what if you didn't have that coach and the staff that he mentioned, that belief in you? Because to me that's a real learning moment in there. It requires belief in you even when you don't believe in you.
[00:18:53] Speaker B: That's a great question. And I think part of the reason, I don't know, I mean, I think part of the reason I struggle with believing in myself is because I was able to come from a good family who had a lot of resources. So sometimes you feel like it's everything that's been given to you that helps you. I call it like the lucky spoon syndrome, the silver spoon syndrome.
But what it helped me realize was that at the end of the day, you need to step in the box, batter, box yourself or up on stage and actually deliver. So, you know, again, it goes back to learning how to believe in yourself. So I don't know exactly what would have happened if I didn't have a gut punch like that like the coach did. But Brandon, I kind of feel that I had it in, I had enough grit in me and determination like what I did play in baseball, I would have figured out eventually is most. Is the most likely answer to that.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I agree. And I guess again this is why I, again we're on the same page, why we connect so well, I think is that sporting background and the grit, determination you have to have through you can have a great game one week and next thing you're playing like a dog in the next game, aren't you? So it can be very ups and downs. You've got to have that grit and determination to get through. And I think in the fortunate opportunity I have, and I know you threw it in different business, but working with sort of business owners, business leaders, certainly the owners have a lot of grit. You know, they've had those ups and downs, they really get in and knuckle down. The family orientated side of business owners is what I love because you get that balance with the family. They don't always know how to get there, but they're trying to get to that point where they've got some sort of harmony in their life with their family, their business. And the business is starting to work around them. So I can definitely relate to the grit, the determination. And fundamentally, I think sport is that as we agree that foundation for building some of that, which is why you've got to get your kids involved in sport, which is what you mentioned earlier, our four step framework. Mate, this sounds very intriguing. So let's. What's the first step? Talk us through this.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: The first step is labeling your fear. What is it that you're so afraid of?
In my case, this first case, it was failing at baseball and maybe embarrassing or feeling like I left let my dad down. From a business perspective, maybe it's getting promoted into a new manager role and wondering if I even have the skills to be it. You know, if people will follow me or believe in me, trust me as a leader. And when you first identify what that is, then you put a label on it and say, look, what's the worst case scenario? I call it Brennan purposeful, awfulizing. You know, it's okay to take things to the negative. I think, you know, you don't always have to look at like the best case scenario, but look at like the worst case scenario a year later. If I get promoted into a leadership role in an organization and I don't do well, maybe I lose my job, maybe I get demoted, but can I overcome that? Absolutely. I can overcome that. Right? So once you realize that it's not the end of the world if you do fail, if you want to look at it as failure, then you move on to step number two. So, okay, I know what my fear is. Step number two is I don't care what anybody says, there's no replacement for hard work. There's no hacks to getting through it. And I think the great thing about hard work is it also keeps your mind focused and busy, so you're less likely to be thinking about what can go wrong. If you're just working through whatever it is that you're doubting yourself about.
The next step is deliberate practice.
It's easy to get sidetracked or procrastinate or, you know, if I'm giving a presentation and I really struggle at one particular thing, you need to focus in on that and practice it over and over and over. Just that part of your speech, if that's what you can do, do till you get better at it and then move on to something else. So that deliberate, focused practice is so important. And then the final step is, again, using my baseball analogy, whether you step into the batter's box, you step on stage for a keynote, or you're leading A new team, whatever it is, at that point, it's time to learn and let go. Okay? Because you've put in the work, you've put in the effort. Stop thinking about the technique or whatever it is you're doing. Just go out there and give it your best shot. You might fall flat on your face, you might knock it out of the park. But at the end of the day, Brandon, I don't think we give ourselves enough credit for getting out of our comfort zone and trying something.
And every opportunity is a learning opportunity. So even if you do a great job, what can you learn and do even better next time if you fail? Be open to receiving feedback, finding out what you can do better.
Feedback, I believe is fuel for learning and then just move on and just keep going. And I think the older you get, the more you understand that you got to get out of your comfort zone. You know, you could overcome whatever these different challenges are. And I feel like I've built up a lot of confidence in myself over the years by trying things that maybe I didn't think I was, you know, whether it's self doubt or imposter syndrome, that something I was, you know, thinking about doing a keynote. I did one at the Naval Academy and I thought to myself, these guys really want to hear me talk. You know what I mean? I mean, couldn't they find somebody else better? But I'm like, no, they asked me. So I do belong here. It's not my responsibility at this point to think whether or not I'm good enough. It's my responsibility to give it 100% and go from there. And it went well in your ex.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: I mean, the first point. Well, let me say this actually, it's not strange to me that learner has been so successful under your leadership because the practicality of those steps is so simple. So I imagine that you put that into the learn it business and with the trainers and stuff. There's so much training out there, is so book smart and all that sort of stuff. These are practical steps people can make. But back to the first step about label your fear. Have you come across either in yourself or maybe some of the people that you've coached and mentored over the years that it does require an element of self awareness there or self reflection. How do you, how do you help coach and guide someone that isn't quite there yet to get to a point where they are self reflective? Because you can tell them, but it doesn't have the same resonation?
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Well, I think that self awareness and Self reflection are incredibly important.
And it goes back to my whole thing about being a learn it all versus a know it all, you know, a learn it all of somebody who's humble and open and curious. On the other side, you have know it alls. And I don't care what anybody says, even know it alls. Everybody suffers imposter syndrome and self doubt. You know, some people are just, you know, they just don't want to admit it for whatever reason. They feel like they have all the answers, but that comes across as inauthentic. And so I think it's a little tough with individuals who have that attitude about it like that they're not, they struggle with self awareness. But I think the best thing you can do with that is ask them open ended questions and be, be kind of direct. I, I think you find sometimes that people will look at it who maybe have the know it all mentality and they'll blame other people and say this, this happened because of this. But then you just got to kind of point it out like what was, what was your role in this not going well? You know, and what could we do differently? And you know, especially when it comes to sales, you lost this deal. It's not because of pricing, it's not because our product was inferior. It's something that you could have done differently or could have done better. So I think it's important to help people who maybe struggle with self awareness or think they have it all figured out to kind of call them out on it and have a conversation. I mean, what do you think about that?
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah, always a good question. What do you think about that?
This is a bit of a leading question. I suppose I could ask a different way, but do you find that people who are maybe not that self aware and self reflect around this imposter syndrome? There's an element of bravado around them. It's almost like my, you know, I'm putting up my cloak and hiding something.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I think a lot of times it has to deal with ego and maybe not even sometimes it's ego and sometimes it's just a lack of, just self confidence, you know, a lack of self confidence and imposter syndrome. But you have too much ego. You could still have, I believe you could still have ego and deal with imposter syndrome. Like, you know, you're afraid to admit, you're afraid to be transparent that this is what you're going through because you don't want to show weakness. You know, everybody thinks sometimes, not everybody, but some people think that being vulnerable at all and asking for help is a sign of weakness. So you put up that guard, but in the background to yourself, you're like, well, you know, I mean, I don't even know if I really belong here, but I'm just going to try to fake it as much as I can until I make it. And I just think it's better to be authentic and say, look, I don't know, or I need help or. And find the resources it takes to get you there.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: And give us an example where, like, the application of hard work, I mean, there's tons of them, but something that resonates for you around, okay, moving this step, we've labeled it, we've labeled the fear. There's some imposter syndrome wrapped up in that. But what does then hard work look like off the back of that example?
[00:28:10] Speaker B: What hard work doesn't look like necessarily is working 14, 16 hours a day at something. You know, it's not putting in unlimited amount of time. To me, hard work means really putting in the focused dedication and pushing yourself to do the work. You know, getting out of your comfort zone and really going for it. That, you know, going all in and focusing in on it is really what I look at as hard work and staying disciplined through it.
[00:28:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I like it. And then the deliberate practice part, where did this, where did that stand out for you in your own journey? Again? Because this four step framework is just not something you sat there and like, bang, it just came like you've lived and breathed this. So what does deliberate practice look like? And then how did this come about in this epiphany that you had with these four steps?
[00:29:04] Speaker B: It goes back to baseball. There was two things that I struggled at a lot in baseball. It was hitting curveballs, and I wasn't a great defensive player. Right. And so early on in my career, I didn't want the ball hit to me. You know, I'm like, I just don't want the ball hit to me. And then what I ended up telling myself is, well, I'm just gonna really put in the deliberate practice and work, take a thousand ground balls, have somebody throw me a thousand curveballs, and just do it over and over and over again till I get that muscle memory. And this goes for work too. So that when, when it's time, when it's game time and I'm out there on the, on the baseball field, I say to myself, I'm not gonna get anxious over this or get super stressed out because I've practiced this. I focus on this so much that if the ball is hit to me, I'm gonna know what to do with it. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be okay. And so that's, that's how I overcome, I think, a lot of anxiety. Even in the business world, or if I felt like I wasn't competent enough in something, I would just dive in. And I think that kind of led Brandon to me really having an insatiable appetite for learning, you know, because when I first became the CEO at Learn It, I thought to myself, well, I don't know, I mean, I've been here five years, I've done a pretty good job, but now this is a much bigger responsibility. I might have had a little bit of imposter syndrome, but I said, look, I'm going to dive into this. I'm going to read books, I'm going to get mentors, I'm going to do workshops, I'm going to ask questions. And you just started to see more success of it over time. But then I just started to really, really enjoy it. So, I mean, I never set out to be in the learning and development world or be so passionate about learning. I wasn't a very good, I mean, not a very good student is an understatement for how I was growing up. But now I'm one of the individuals who loves to learn. And it's not just about leadership or, you know, work stuff. I'm just a much more curious person.
And you just find the world to be a lot more interesting when you have that passion, I guess, for learning.
[00:31:10] Speaker A: It's quite ironic really, mate, isn't it, that somebody who's a self confessed, not the best student now leading a very successful learning company and having, you know, hundreds of thousands of students going through your programs.
[00:31:21] Speaker B: Well, and one thing I want to say about that too is I've had so many failures. I mean, a lot. But a lot of business leaders do it. And you know, I'm sure you talk about them to on your show and I do on mine. It's like there's a lot of bumpy roads along the way and if listeners out there are thinking about going out and starting their own thing and you know, is it glamorous? No, it's not glamorous. You're gonna, you're gonna make a lot of mistakes, you're gonna have a lot of situations. You're like, oh man, why did I do that? But you know, you just have to learn from that and do the best you can and surround yourself with great people, whether it's mentors or co workers and, and, and, and yeah, I mean, so, yeah, I'm very fortunate. We've had a great deal of success at Learn it through some very trying times. But I'd have to say I owe it mostly honestly to my team. I think that the best part of my leadership, or my secret sauce, if I had one, is just being able to attract and retain fabulous talent who has been engaged and believe in what we do at Learn It.
[00:32:22] Speaker A: There's a few things that come to mind here and speaking from some of my old mentors, but you get the people you deserve is one of the things. So you're obviously getting good people because you deserve good people. And your business grows off the back of the owner or the senior leader growing and you're doing all those things. So it's really, again, I'm very safe to say all of those things. I believe and it's safe to say that if you weren't growing, your business won't grow. And if you're not growing, then again you're getting the people you deserve, which is probably not high quality people. No, definitely not high quality people. Right.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: I'm a big believer that your culture of your organization is directly tied to either your CEO or your senior leadership. You know, the C level or the owner, they have to model the behavior that they want throughout the rest of their organization.
If you lead with integrity and you're humble and you have values for your company and you, you don't just put them on the wall, but you actually live them and then you also hire for them, you know, and you hire for people with them, then you're going to attract and retain people like that. But if you don't, if you over promise and under produce, you lack integrity, you're unreliable, then that's the kind of people you're going to get, you know. And so I think it's a leader's responsibility to model the behavior that they expect of their team.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: In your first step, in your fourth step. Sorry, mate. And the learn and let it go. So I can certainly understand you've explained the learn. What does let it go mean for people?
[00:33:53] Speaker B: To me, let it go means that stop thinking about what you're going to do and just do it, you know, I mean again, going back to giving keynote presentations, I was always taught a couple hours before you go on stage. Stop thinking about your technique or what you know, just put that aside, be present in the moment. Know that you've Put in all that practice and effort and everything and just go out and try to enjoy yourself. Just let go, just do your best. And then you can do a post mortem or whatever you want to call it afterwards. But I feel like sometimes that if you go into a big presentation and you're worried about the mechanics of what you're doing, instead of just being your authentic, genuine self, it's not going to go as well as if you were coming in curious and just trusting. I think it comes down to Brandon trusting your ability at that point. Just sticking your neck out there again and just going for it. I hope that makes sense.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Absolutely it does, mate. Let it go. Just make it happen. There's not a lot you can do with your technique in the space of an hour or two before your big dance, I suppose.
What part does transparency, that authenticity, that vulnerability, play in, say, a leader's journey? If they are feeling imposter syndrome, what could they do? Or in your experience, what have you done that really helps the journey move forward? And getting out of imposter syndrome, I.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: Think transparency in general is one of the key traits that, or characteristics that leaders need to have for a lot of reasons. But if you want to tie it back to imposter syndrome, which I think is interesting, is that if you are transparent, I think it helps eliminate the need for needing to be perfect for one. So if you're transparent with people and saying, you know what, I'm kind of nervous about how this is going to go, or I'm struggling with this, then you kind of got it out there, right? So you're kind of easing it up for yourself, lack of a better term, of just going out and doing it, saying like, hey, I don't have to make this perfect. I'm already, I've put it out there that this is something that worries me or whatever. And I also think that being transparent and humble when it comes to imposter syndrome, it helps maybe even open the door for others to say, hey, look, we all struggle with something, by the way, look at some of the great stuff you've been able to accomplish. And so especially if you have good mentors or people you work with. I think that it's tough though, because if you're doubting yourself and you're wondering if you're not even capable of being there, it might be difficult to be transparent. But I think if you're an authentic, genuine person, what do you have to lose, really? Right. What do you have to lose to just saying, look, I'm struggling With this, I don't even know if I really belong here. And then it's nice to have somebody that comes back to you and says, well yeah, you do belong here, you know, because this, this and this. Now I have this conversation a lot and I'm sure you probably do as you get higher up in the organization or if you're a C level. Being a CEO can be a very lonely place because it's probably not a great idea to turn around to your, you know, the people that report to you, you know, and say, I don't know if I'm capable of doing this, you know, with or without your help. You know, it's, it's, it's and, and maybe showing a little bit because there's a difference between being vulnerable and confident and being like imposter syndrome. Like I don't know if I'm good enough. I mean I, I would say that kind of conversation for like a mentor or join like a mastermind, you know, some great, like the CEO project and other ones out there, join those types of organization, organizations, masterminds and be transparent there. So I think, I think it's could be a fine line between, you know, showing, you know, like I'm suffering with imposter syndrome when you're talking to your team than if you're talking to somebody who's maybe an outsider who can look at it objectively.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that point you make and that it is such a fine line, isn't it? If you're leading a business or a team and you go into your team and say, look, I've got no idea what I'm doing, that's not really going to push confidence through the team, isn't it? It's going to undermine everything that you're going to be doing. So it's a great point, mate. What would you say to. Actually, before I go to that, the thing that really is standing out for me based on this conversation at the moment is that there's a fine line between self doubt and imposter syndrome. But I would say that self doubt is a healthy approach. And imposter syndrome, if you let it take hold and not do anything about it, it's very unhealthy. Can you talk to that? What would you say about that statement?
[00:38:23] Speaker B: I would say I agree with that statement, you know, because I think imposter syndrome ties back to, at this point to your identity, about what you really think about yourself and where self doubt is again temporary or situational. And it can be healthy, especially if somebody like you and I, we talked about who either has grit or has a resilience to want to go out and try something, you know, and push through that self doubt where imposter syndrome, you're really attaching it, I think a lot of times to your identity, which you need to learn how to, how to. I don't think you overcome imposter syndrome as much as you kind of learn how to work through it to get over it.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: Let's wrap this up in a bow, mate. Before I ask the final question that we ask all of our guests. What would you like to say to people watching, listening to this around, moving them through imposter syndrome and conquering it?
[00:39:16] Speaker B: I would say that if you look at it, you know, what goes on in your head, you know, how you talk to yourself is much different than how you, you know, how you critique other people. So don't be as hard on yourself as, as you are. A lot of times I struggle with that a lot, you know, for certain situations. So don't be so hard on yourself. And I would focus more on the process than sometimes even, you know, what the end results are on things and just try something, get out of your again, get comfortable with getting out of your comfort zone and even being comfortable with dealing with failure. And if you are, then I think it helps you really push through and you don't have to suffer through imposter syndrome or self doubt on your own. You know, talk to other people. You know, people want to help. And especially if you have a good crew around you, whether it's family, friends or mentors, you know, be transparent and talk to individuals and just keep working to get a little bit better all the time and go easy on yourself. Then I think a lot of us are too hard on ourselves.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: Yeah, you got that right, mate. Great practical advice.
Last question is, what have you done to build a cultural leadership or what's the one thing that's really stood out for you to build a culture of leadership?
[00:40:29] Speaker B: One thing I've already mentioned was the modeling the behavior. So since I've already talked about that, I'll say the other thing that I've done is created a, I believe a safe space to fail.
When I interview people, Brandon, the first thing I tell them, and I'm usually like one of the last interviews is I say, look, I don't want you coming here if you're just going to be on a train track and you're going to be afraid to make mistakes. You know, I don't, I don't want that. What I want is somebody who's willing to learn and try. And if we fail, we'll learn how to do it better or differently next time. And I think when you create a culture of leadership like that, then even from your front line, people aren't afraid to try things. You know, they, because they, they take leadership in their own sense, they take ownership. But if you work in an organization where if you make a mistake and you get hammered for that mistake, you know, you're not gonna. People aren't gonna evolve and they don't wanna work for companies like that. And at the end of the day, people wanna work for leaders in a culture of leadership where they feel like they trust their leader and that their leader has your back. So I think that that's something that we've done really well over the years.
[00:41:41] Speaker A: Thank you, mate. Yeah, well done. And look, keep inspiring with your leadership, keep growing the business, whatever growth means to you. Thanks for coming on the show today and talking about conquering imposter syndrome. We'll put contact details in our show notes and all that sort of stuff if people want to reach out and get in touch with you, mate. But really appreciate you coming on. Thanks for being a fantastic guest.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed our conference conversation.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: These are my three key takeaways from my conversation with Damon. My first key takeaway Confident leaders label their fears instead of letting them control their actions. They identify the exact fears holding them back and challenge worst case scenarios to gain clarity and perspective. This mindset shift helps them take action instead of getting stuck in self doubt. My second key takeaway Confident leaders embrace hard work as a tool to build real confidence. Instead of searching for shortcuts, they put in the effort knowing that true confidence comes from preparation, practice and experience, not luck or external validation. My third key takeaway Confident leaders normalize self doubt, but don't let it define them. They acknowledge that moments of imposter syndrome happen to everyone, but instead of seeing it as proof they don't belong, they use it as fuel to keep learning, improving, and leading with authenticity. So in summary, my three key takeaways were Confident leaders label their fears instead of letting them control their actions. Confident leaders embrace hard work as a tool to build real confidence. And confident leaders normalize self doubt, but don't let it define them. Let me know your key takeaway on YouTube or at theculturalleadership.com thanks for joining me. And remember, the best outcome is on the other side of a genuine conversation.
