Trudi Kayser - Imposter Syndrome and how to Kick IT's ASS!

Trudi Kayser

[00:00:00] Wendy Manganaro: Hi everyone. My name's Wendy Manganaro and I am the Host of the Wellness and Wealth podcast. I'm so happy to have you find us. And if you could take a moment and hit that subscribe button, I'd really appreciate it. This is the podcast where we believe when you show up better for yourself as a woman business owner, you show up better for your business. 

So sit back, relax. And learn from the practical to the woo-hoo, how to best take care of you. Have a great day. Stay blessed. And leave a review when you're done listening to the show, thanks so much. 

[00:00:37] Wendy: Hey everyone, today we have another fabulous guest as always, Miss Trudi Kayser, and I'm gonna read her bio and we'll get right started. So after years of struggling in the J-O-B just over broke world and having a boss truly leaped on her own, to start her own business in the financial services industry.

It was hard enough being a woman in this industry, not to mention the pressure of success that she put on herself, especially coming from her background. She was a mere five year sober when she made this decision. This coupled with the lack of experience and being a financial train wreck herself spur at a plethora of mistakes.

Fear and insecurity both financially and emotionally. Fast forward nine years later and Trudy is making finances fun, her outgoing and fun spirit nature. Spirited nature is what her clients love most about her. She enjoys educating her clients first and foremost, to empower them to make their own decisions when it comes to finances.

With the hospitality and sales background, her clients feel at ease and completely taken care of throughout the learning process. Trudy is an expert at connecting people and gathering resources for her. Clients as a National Vice President at Five Rings Financial and heading up several offices across the nation branded Under Life Made to Order Financial Phoenix llc.

She's a vital part of Five Rings, Financials crusade to educate the masses about money and how to feel confident making your own decisions about your money. Welcome Trudy. Thanks for coming on the show with me. 

[00:02:09] Trudi Kaiser: Thanks. Thanks. That was a nice introduction there. 

[00:02:11] Wendy: Well, it's all about you, so that's great. So I have to say, Trudi and I have talked a couple of times prior to this and this last time I was like, Hey, you should probably be on the show. So I'm really excited that you're here to join us and I love our topic today. It's gonna be on imposter syndrome. I know so many people, and especially female entrepreneurs go through this phase. I don't know if I've ever met one that really hasn't gone through that phase.

 But I'm curious in, in your definition, what is imposter syndrome? 

[00:02:45] Trudi Kaiser: BS! No, I'm just kidding. You know there is an official definition for imposter syndrome, but my personal definition of imposter syndrome is the feeling of inadequacy. Despite all outward appearance of success and how other people see you, wouldn't it be grand if I could only see myself the way others see me?

But we don't, we don't, especially as women. And being, in the financial services industry, with a background I had, and I don't think anyone who's ever done an interview with me or I've told my story to really knows the Terribleness of my past, and what I did and how I did things, and how I lived my life.

I was a drug addict. I was an alcoholic. I did many things that were not, conducive to being a financial services person or helping or even helping other people for that matter. And so when I came into the financial services industry, I questioned a lot. Is this going to be the right move for me?

But deep down inside, I loved the company that I was working with. I loved the people that I was working with. I loved the culture, and it was so different than any other company that I'd ever worked for and it gave me an opportunity to make my own schedule to be my own boss, which in itself was an issue at that point.

Because once again, who am I to be a boss? Especially of myself. So it was definitely that imposter syndrome reared its ugly head for many years in my life. And for many years I didn't even realize that's what it was. 

[00:04:30] Wendy: And let's back up for one second because I know this for being an entrepreneur myself, like you said you were like, oh, I had my own issues being a boss.

I thought that was like I could take off whenever I wanted and I was like, I really gotta keep a schedule? 

[00:04:42] Trudi Kaiser: Guess what, if I don't work, I don't earn. 

[00:04:45] Wendy: Exactly. Amazing. But I wanted to back up and challenge you here for a second cuz as you were talking, I was thinking about it, I had heard, a TED talk, that we call it imposter syndrome, but it's really fear, and worth.

[00:04:57] Trudi Kaiser: That's really what it boils down to. I'm not worthy. And how many women out there feel like that right now? Well, I dare I say how many women feel okay admitting that. I think that's really what it boils down to. We live in a society that, is status quo.

It all depends on status quo. We, care way too much about what others think about us, and especially in the entrepreneurial world. You feel like that you have to put forward beautiful vision of success, beautiful vision of, I am uber successful.

This is what I do. I'm really good at what I do, and I know what the heck I'm talking about more than anyone else. And that's why you wanna come and work with me. And I love what you do, Wendy, because it's attracting. It is not a necessity. A have to and I see a lot the trend now is people showing their vulnerability moving and building their business and starting out, because you don't step into a financial services career with everything you need unless you're straight outta college, unless you have the training, unless you have been through tons and tons of classes.

Well, our company very purposefully hires people that don't have any experience. So I was honest. I was the ideal client. I was the ideal client. I was the ideal person to go to work with him. I just didn't know that inside . And I think that's what it boils down to too. 

[00:06:22] Wendy: And as you were talking, the other thing I was thinking about too, which I really like, that you're in financial services as a female, and here's my reasoning behind that, and it does go with imposter syndrome is that I don't think enough women talk about money yet. So even if you're not in the financial services, it's like there's this, comparison of what you are supposed to make out there or what we think other people are making. I was in the social media group for a little bit because it was other social media managers and it was a collaboration group. But when I realized the struggle with women who were in there asking about how much other people charged and then what people were saying, I was like floored and, I remember going through that growing period of my business where I was afraid to charge. 

And I didn't feel like I could talk to anybody about it to say. Am I getting what I'm worth for the value? And, I don't think there's enough conversation when it comes to imposter syndrome around that conversation.

[00:07:23] Trudi Kaiser: I agree. I agree fullheartedly and well, there's Google. Honestly, if you type in a question to Google and over 1 million answers come up, which one are you gonna choose? And if you go through several pages of Google, there is, very different information concerning every single, Subject that you could think of out there, contradictory information as well about imposter syndrome, about entrepreneurship, about how to get an llc, about how to build a business, about how to pull up your bootstraps. There's too much information, dare I say, too much information.

And, the ability for us to have it at our fingertips is what is so easy, right? But it ends up being very confusing. And, you end up at the place where you started not knowing. Because how do you choose which one is right? Do you go and research the person that wrote that article and make your own decision at that point?

Or do you have time to go research that person? And so I took a little break, stepping back from technology a little bit in the beginning. And it wasn't because I was so confused as to what to do and how to do it and whatnot, and then I basically just started depending on the mentors that I had chosen to work with in our company.

And, went with that and left everything else out because I didn't want any conflicting information because that would've just made it worse. That would've just made my imposter syndrome worse. If I'm questioning what my mentors are teaching me. That kind of defeats the purpose.

And that was the beauty of what I loved about coming to work with Five Rings Financial. I wasn't working for them. I was working with them to build my own company. And from the very beginning I wanted that, and I was scared to death. Fear. It was a fear based thing. And what do they say about fear?

There's all kinds of sayings about it but what gets you through it is courage. The courage to go through the fear, to face the fear, and it's not always easy to do that. And I think that if you do it alone, you're foolish to do it alone. It's always a better choice to reach out to someone and go through the fear with them beside you.

My problem was, I came from an addict background. I was addicted to methamphetamine, I was addicted to alcohol. And, with that even being five years sober coming into this business, I still had a lot of those ticks. I still had a lot of those, character traits that go along with an addict. Feelings of inadequacy, doubt.

Guilt, shame, all of that stuff. I went through the steps of aa, the whole nine yards. I had a sponsor, everything, but none of that helped because the main, and I've got this from a TED talk, and it was a very valuable TED talk to me when I first got in this business. And that was, it talked about, the disconnect that an addict feels, and that's why they.

Participate in drugs because drugs helps you to feel connected in our mind, and so the main crux of building a business, especially the five Rings financial way, is through relationship. And building relationships. I've never bought leads. I've never had to, maybe I should have, but I didn't. And it was about me learning how to build relationships, how to be a friend to someone.

And they just kept telling me, keep going. You got this, you can do this, do this, do this. And then, I had my sponsor over here saying, are you writing down your gratitude thoughts every day? Are you doing? And I'm like, What good is that gonna do me seriously, like writing down some stuff I'm thankful about.

Like I totally had attitude about it, totally had attitude about it until I started doing it. And then at that point that gratitude starts hitting in. It's impossible for you to be doubtful and insincere and disconnected when you're feeling gratitude. It's so huge, so simple that people don't think it'seffective.

And I will tell you that is the one thing that changed my life. 

[00:11:59] Wendy: That is so true. And there's a couple things that you said in there, but gratitude is a huge piece of the puzzle of Bringing yourself through self-doubt. I think a lot in the shower gosh, that's my thinking spot.

[00:12:12] Trudi Kaiser: That's my thinking spot. 

[00:12:13] Wendy: And I was thinking like in my own life, when you start to feel grateful and start to remember all of the people who have stepped up to help you along the way and that's what I was thinking about, like we don't talk about money, especially as female entrepreneurs and there's still in some places, there's this idea of I gotta keep everything a secret, especially around money. But I was thinking about it. If I really look back and you start to think about all of the people who step up during your life and ended up helping you in some way. And whether it was about the money conversation or any other personal conversation because most of us don't know what we don't know until somebody shows us it. And as the person who helps with the Google there's truth to this. Anybody could be number one in Google. Based on how we work the algorithms, right? 

[00:13:02] Trudi Kaiser: And how much you pay as well. 

[00:13:04] Wendy: Right? It's all about seo. It's all about how you do the background of it. And that's not a bad thing. I'm not saying that we shouldn't do that, but I think that there's there's a difference between I'm getting information from online and I do it all the time. It's not like I don't, and then knowing somebody who's had that experience and getting information from them directly. 

And that's why attraction is so important because you're right, we can find all sorts of information but in my mind, every client is not the right client. It doesn't Work like that. And vice versa is every company is not the right company for me. So, as the buyer. I think there has to be a collaboration between the two, but the way that you do that is to be the experiential part of it. 

[00:13:45] Trudi Kaiser: And you know what's interesting too is I learned early on that perception is projection or projection is perception. And I had a coach early on. I, got a coach gifted to me. I was very blessed in that sense that I did not have to spend money on a coach.

I worked with her. And, we traded and I worked with her on the side at a networking company and she coached me. I literally would call her every single day, oh my God, this person pissed me off and blah, blah, blah. And she would always say perception is projection.

Perception is projection and I would just end up like, Ugh. I'd get so angry with her and so frustrated, but she was right. So here I am, I have this self-doubt, I have this guilt, this shame going on. This is what I'm making my decisions with around money as well, right? Not only relationships, but around money as well.

And I have this imposter syndrome, and that is how I perceive myself so therefore I project that out on others, and the people that I were doing business with in my mind were also imposter syndrome. So how do you think my business was going? Not very well, thank you very much. And it was frustrating. It was so frustrating.

I couldn't figure out why, because I don't attract what I want. I attract who I am. And I don't care who you are, we are mirrors and magnets and that's exactly what it boils down to. And in the end, if we aren't well, then we are going to attract people that aren't well. And one of my main cruxes was, we were trying to cover people with life insurance.

And how often do you get covered with life insurance if you're ill and sick? Not much. And so I had this skewed vision of myself and that fed the imposter syndrome even more at that point.

[00:15:39] Wendy: Yeah, I always say that two half people don't make a whole person. When it comes to people, two halves do not make a whole. I am usually using that on personal relationships. But that counts for business too. It does not work if you don't. And I like that you said that, there is something about want, but what am I doing? What action steps am I doing to become the person that I wanna attract? Whether it's in business, whether it's in personal relationships. I had a friend of my husband who used to say that you are judging your intentions while other people are watching your actions.

My intention is to do the right thing, but really am I doing the right thing? And so I had to step into, if I wanna attract the right thing, then I need to think about it and are your actions backing up to that?

So, with finances, in your opinion, especially for entrepreneurs, how do you think Imposter syndrome hurts people professionally and personally because it does. I think we're starting to delve into it a little, but it can have people walk away from businesses in my experience.

[00:16:36] Trudi Kaiser: In life in general, I can only speak for myself personally, and professionally in the sense that it was exhausting, first of all. And when you're exhausted, some things start happening to you physically. As well, and years and years of exhaustion, meaning no sleep because you're too worried or you're thinking too much, you're ruminating that process and it starts out this small little thought that happens and it's innocent enough in the beginning, but you look at it as a snowball.

At the top of a big, huge mountain and the mountain's covered in snow, and you just drop that snowball and it starts rolling down the hill and collecting all the thing. And that's what happens when you ruminate, right? And you so you don't sleep. Well at all. And then you know, you're in your forties.

That's when I was in my forties and all that perimenopausal stuff was happening and changes were happening and all this hormonal stuff mixed in on top of the imposter syndrome. The doubts this, it was exhausting. And I will tell you, two years ago, I hit a wall, hit a wall. I started this business in, 2013 and by 2020.

Somewhere in there, I started feeling the physical toll that it was taking on my body. I said in the beginning, I will give myself five years for this business and if it doesn't work in five years, then I'll move on to something else. I gave myself permission to be okay with that, and I had a plan in place, and then three years in, I moved.

I moved out here to Arizona from San Diego. And when I was starting to feel comfortable with everything and the networking, and the meeting people, and the building, the relationships and all the things that I had to do in order to get my business, and I was starting to quell that imposter syndrome, then I moved out here and literally had to start all over again.

And it was exhausting. But I did have some skills that I didn't have before. Some really good interpersonal skills, some soft skills. I just talked about that this morning on my Trudi's Tuesday Tips, hard skills versus soft skills. And a lot of companies are focusing on soft skills nowadays because they're important.

And so, by the time I hit a wall, I was so filled with physical inflammation in my body that it was very difficult for me to function at all without some sort of inflammatory product in my system. And the doctor had offered narcotics, but I was sober. I didn't want anything to do with that, and so I dealt with it.

But I had not spent any time or money figuring out what the physical problem was either. I did go to acupuncturist and chiropractors and, all these things and fix my muscles and do this and do that because it possibly can't possibly be coming from my imposters syndrome and my inadequate feelings of shame and guilt.

It can't possibly come from that. Well, it does come from that, and once that is repaired or on a way to being repair. Then your body starts repairing itself and you start waking up a little bit to the fact that, Hey, I am valuable and hey, I can do this. And maybe it was my thoughts that were holding me back So the detrimental, part of imposter syndrome is we can't get out of our own way. We make decisions based on the guilt, the shame, and thedoubt. And the fear not based on the truth about the matter. I've been training for seven years for this. I've been meeting with clients. I do well by them. They call me and tell me they love me.

They leave me great reviews. They tell their family about me. I get a majority of my business from referrals. Now, if that's not proof that I'm successful, what else do I need? What I needed was a change in language and a better relationship with myself. And once that started happening, imposter syndrome very rarely rears its ugly head in my life anymore.

I mean, there may be like, Here's a little feeling of it. Why don't we just go talk nice to ourselves in the mirror then and get this back on the right track. And the realization a couple of years ago that I did not have a good relationship with myself, despite all of the self-development I had done, despite all of the times I had been through the steps of aa, despite all of the books I had read, despite all of the coaches I had worked with.

Still did not have a good relationship with myself. I mean, I lived and breathed Louise Hay for two years, , and still did not have a good relationship with myself and the reality is until that happened, imposter syndrome was still right here. Hey, Hey, I'm here. What are you doing today? Let's do it with imposter syndrome.

And it was literally exhausting. It was just exhausting. And so I will tell you, if you have imposter syndrome, if you are suffering from symptoms of imposter syndrome, it will catch up to you eventually, physically, mentally, it'll bleed out into every part of your relationships. It'll bleed out into your home.

It'll bleed out into everything that you. Because it just gets outta control and, reeling it back in and gathering it does not help, but changing your language and changing your relationship with yourself does, and sometimes we need help to do that. 

[00:22:26] Wendy: It's so interesting you're saying that too. And I've gone through this and I do agree with you 150% until I started to change the language, it was like impossible to hear anything.

But I know for myself, if somebody would've handed me that right at the beginning, I wouldn't have known what to do with that. I think what happens with, I think people in general, they go, there's a problem, and it's like whatever the problem is, that peak moment of clarity and then you're like, oh, okay, this is getting a little better.

And then there's like, oh, but I still have this over here. And then you have this peak moment of clarity there. And then like finally, and I don't know whether some of that comes with age or knowledge, but suddenly you're like, eh, oh, it all goes together. Like I can't piecemeal this together and think it's gonna work.

I gotta use it all and then like actually do. At least that's been my experience.

[00:23:17] Trudi Kaiser: Work on your business at the same time. Cook dinner for your family and do the homework with your kids and play with your cat.

And go to the gym and do you feel like you're spinning all these plates all over the place?

[00:23:30] Wendy: You're right. And then that goes back to when you're doing one thing, you're like, I'm feeling guilty about not doing another. And so it's like until all of those worlds collide, I don't know if anybody will hear it until they're ready to hear it. 

[00:23:42] Trudi Kaiser: You're exactly correct. You are correct. And it takes a culmination of bad experiences, good experiences in different experiences over a period of time in order to say, oh, I hear that the way. I should be hearing it in order to facilitate change, and I heard it for years, you attract who you are, the law of attraction.

I used to get up every morning and I had a treadmill in my living room, and I would turn on the television and I would watch the Secret. Every single morning I would, that's what I did. I spent my time. I didn't have a lot of clients back then because imposter syndrome. And so, that's what I would do.

And okay, I got this law of attraction thing down now I'm gonna get in the mindset to do that. And it was working on my mindset as well. I came from a very lack minded, set of parents. my parents were born in the twenties. They were old when I was born. Older, I'll just say older.

Not old, but older. I was born last, in line, I was the youngest of 10. I was the 10th born and many, many marriages before I came along with both sides of my parents. And, there was a lot of things that my parents did that I was just like, what's wrong with you?

Like, I need some hugs right now. Is that not gonna happen? No. Okay. All right. Fine. You know, and, and my husband always jokes around with me. You didn't get a lot of hugs as a child, did you? I was angry when I grew up. I was angry because I was angry at my parents. I was angry at the situation. I was in the circumstances, I had the same pair of shoes for three years, I didn't have a bike until I was seven.

We didn't get a TV until I was eight. We lived out in the country. We literally did not have running water from the city until I was probably 10 years. It was crazy. And then all of a sudden my mom and dad was like, yeah, we're not gonna be together anymore. And I was like, what?

Well, thank God cuz you guys sucked together. , I came to my realization at that point and some interesting things happened, that created this circumstances and all I saw growing up was my mom drinking. She was a raging alcoholic and so, it's good enough for her. It's good enough for me.

I did not wanna be like her, though. I did not. And so you have to deal with these programmings that happen when you're a child from the ages of one to seven neurolinguistics programming. We're talking about neurolinguistics from the language and programming someone can say something to you so innocent when you're young.

But your young mind takes it on. One thing that comes to mind is my mother used to always rush me all the time andale andale , come on, hurry up, let's go, let's go, let's go. You're running behind. Let's go. She was always in a hurry. I don know why. Always in a hurry. So when I left my very small hometown and moved to San Diego, I was like, yes, this is my place.

Everybody's in a hurry. Let's go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Once again, exhaustion. You get to the end of the day and you're just like, oh my God, why are we in such a hurry to live our life. Why can't we live in the moment and take it all in and and be content in the moment? it's always, oh, the next thing I gotta do, the next thing I gotta do the next thing.

And I realized that I was programmed that way. And this was one of the things that fed my imposter syndrome too. So I say, go back and look at your childhood. Look at some of the things that were said to you. Look at some of the deep beliefs that you have. Look at some of the money beliefs that you have, the friendship beliefs that you have, the love beliefs that you have.

All of these beliefs that have been built up in you and programmed, and you over the years, and use your language to start changing them because you can, it can be done. It takes consistency. However, awareness is the first key, right? And being able to do that, and it just, it gets to a point of being able to actually be in control of it is empowering.

And when you can get to that point and, speak to yourself in a loving manner all day long instead of shit talking yourself all day long or should talking yourself all day long, things start to change very quickly. Dare I say overnight, right? It is quick. I go by the mantra.

Now, slow is fast, slow, methodical, very meaningful movements, create a consistency and you don't feel rushed, you don't feel stressed, you don't feel anxiety. But I have to catch myself, right? So I feel myself. Okay, let's just step back and take a breath. Let's. Take it easy. A few seconds isn't gonna make a difference.

It's not gonna make a difference. Let's do this methodical and do this slow. Slow is fast. Fast is slow. You do some things fast, you're gonna mess it up and you're gonna do this, da, da, da da. And then what? You gotta go do it all over again. So I found that programming, figuring out the programming that I got as a young child really helped me to effectively treat my

imposter syndrome.

[00:28:50] Wendy: Oh my gosh. I can't believe we've talked for 30 minutes because I could do this for. 

[00:28:54] Trudi Kaiser: All day. I could talk about this all day. 

[00:28:56] Wendy: We need to do this again and even go further. And I love where you delve into different things because the older I get, the more truth I find in everything.

Because I went through a traumatic event last my uncle died, who raised me. And the things that I had believed to find out the truth about. And that alone in itself, and I think that's what happens is when we have imposter syndrome. When we go through these fears is that it is that belief system that we were raised with.

And there's a lot of belief systems I've already let go of as the years have gone by.

[00:29:32] Trudi Kaiser: The moment you challenge the belief is the moment when it starts going away. 

[00:29:36] Wendy: Exactly. And so the last year was a big one for me because I had a lot of beliefs about my uncle and grief goes through the stages of like angry and I'm no longer angry, but I can also see like where I need to respeak to myself about the things that are real and not real. And it's been a period of grace in my life because of it. And that's what I think that happens is when we stop taking on all of everybody else's belief system, we can have some grace with ourselves to do different self-talk because it's no longer their voices, it's finding your own in the midst of that. 

[00:30:12] Trudi Kaiser: It really is. And it's also creating that beautiful relationship with yourself. And if you don't have a beautiful relationship with yourself, you cannot be expecting to grow relationships with other people. They're going to be flawed, just like your relationship with yourself is.

And so, Yeah. Being able to change that language and it doesn't take very much. It's so easy and simple. I think a lot of people just don't believe it even works because it's so simple. . 

[00:30:37] Wendy: Exactly. So, I hate to, we 

really, this is, 

[00:30:40] Trudi Kaiser: oh, I know. It's all good.

[00:30:41] Wendy: I know you have an offer for our audience. I wanna let you talk about that now. 

[00:30:47] Trudi Kaiser: So I use this in my practice, in my financial services practices because most people don't have a good relationship with money.

If you have the perception that you don't have a good relationship with money, I would love to offer you a free hour of sitting with myself our consultation and just having a conversation so I can hear your language, and then I can give you some tips, tricks, and hacks to change your language.

Into some language that is going to help you be aware. And granted it's a process. It doesn't happen in an hour, but you can start being aware and changing your language within an hour and learn how that works and then use it as time goes on. And then if you want to work together, we certainly can do that.

And I don't have a coaching program per se, but I do have an amount that I do charge per hour to sit with people, that aren't interested in financial services. So I do have this coaching thing over here on the side. I use it in my financial services business because it does benefit my clients.

But, yeah, one hour. Let's chat about your language and we can definitely start you on a path to change your language. And that is absolutely on me. Time is free. And you can just schedule. I'll give Wendy the link that you can schedule your one hour free consultation and let's get your language changed and let's start feeling happy about life and happy about money decisions and happy about relationship decisions and.

Dare I say bold in your decisions because action creates results and action creates momentum, and action creates motivation. And if you're motivated, then you can go do anything you wanna do. 

[00:32:34] Wendy: So thank you so much for coming on. I'll have your link in the bio , for your, for your offer. And thank you so much. 

[00:32:40] Trudi Kaiser: You're very welcome. You're very welcome. It was a pleasure being here today.

[00:32:44] Wendy: I just wanna thank everybody for listening. Have a great day.

[00:32:47] Trudi Kaiser: Bye 

[00:32:48] Wendy: bye.