Learn how to overcome imposter syndrome with Dr. Jodi and vocal coach Deborah Conquest. Discover why self-doubt happens, how to embrace your uniqueness, and practical strategies to build confidence and authenticity in this empowering episode.
Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Ask Dr. Jodi! Tonight, I have the privilege of sitting down with my dear friend and vocal coach extraordinaire, Deborah Conquest, to unpack the topic of imposter syndrome. If you’ve ever felt like a fraud, doubted your abilities, or feared not being enough, this episode is for you. Together, we explore what imposter syndrome is, why it happens, and how to navigate it—so it no longer holds you back from shining your brightest.
Episode Summary:
Imposter syndrome is that nagging feeling that we aren’t good enough or that we’re a fraud despite our achievements. In this conversation, Deborah and I dive into its roots in our Western culture, how high expectations and comparison culture feed into it, and the real-life struggles performers and professionals face when tackling perfectionism.
As a vocal coach, Deborah shares powerful insights from her own journey and the experiences of her students, ranging from teenagers to adults in their 80s. We talk about the vulnerability of putting yourself out there, the courage to overcome self-doubt, and why normalizing imposter syndrome as a shared human experience is the first step to healing.
We even get creative, making snowflakes to celebrate the beauty of our uniqueness, and explore how finding strength—both inside and out—can transform how we see ourselves.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
Key Takeaways:
Favorite Quotes:
Resources and Links:
Thank you so much for listening to Ask Dr. Jodi! If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and share it with someone who needs inspiration or help to heal!
[00:00:00] Dr. Jodi Aman: Hello and welcome to Ask Dr. Jodi. We have a special night with my friend Deborah here, Deborah Conquest. It's really, really great to be in studio together talking about imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome. Do you have imposter syndrome? Do you want to overcome? Do you want to unpack and get rid of?
[00:00:20] Dr. Jodi Aman: Understand imposter syndrome so that you don't have it weighing on your shoulders as you try to go through life? Let me just tell you what it is, and I'm going to introduce Deborah, and we're going to talk about it. We're going to unpack it, understand it, and then see how to navigate around it. Sounds good.
[00:00:38] Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah. And while we're doing that, we are going to be making snowflakes, because It's cold here. It's cold here in Rochester, New York. And also every snowflake is unique. And so we thought that would be good. It would go along with our theme. Because you are unique. You know, we have a lot of self doubt.
[00:00:59] Dr. Jodi Aman: And self doubt comes in the context of our culture because we have these high expectations in Western culture. And so we have these high expectations. We don't think we can meet them. We're really afraid that everyone's going to see that we are inadequate. Unable not enough. And so we start to think that about ourself too.
[00:01:18] Dr. Jodi Aman: We have a lot of self doubt and, and when we have so much self doubt that we think that we might not deserve success, or we think that somebody else can see that we're a fraud, we're not as great as we're acting or something like that, or we're, we want people to see, then we feel bad about it and that's called imposter syndrome.
[00:01:39] Dr. Jodi Aman: So, when I posted that I was going to do this topic, Deborah reached out to me and said, I'd love to be on and talk about imposter syndrome.
[00:01:48] Deborah Conquest: Yeah. So I work with singers. I'm a vocal coach. And I run an online studio called Conquest Voice Studio, and I work with singers as young as high school and as old as 88.
[00:02:02] Deborah Conquest: That's, I know, what a, what a beauty. No, she's amazing. Her and gosh, I, I feel like I hear all the time in my work. So much self doubt, so much comparing themselves to others. And it of course reflects my own journey as a person, as a human, as a singer. And so I was just saying before we started that I feel like I spend so much, not so much, but some of our time in vocal coaching, talking about imposter syndrome, talking about how can we we're, we're a studio of recovering perfectionists, including me.
[00:02:43] Deborah Conquest: Yes. Recovering perfectionists. I've actually, there's a lot of training out there now about. Like for singers or everybody? For singers, for voice teachers about, you know, how to work through your perfectionism and I
[00:02:57] Dr. Jodi Aman: think performers particularly are so worried about perfectionism because it's so outward facing.
[00:03:04] Dr. Jodi Aman: You know, all of your failures, all of your skills are outward facing and everyone can see every little bit of it. It's hard. It's hard.
[00:03:13] Deborah Conquest: And even more so with singing, your instrument is your body. It's hard. As you know, you, your daughter is a singer and so there, there's no, there's nothing to hide behind.
[00:03:25] Deborah Conquest: You're not hiding behind a piano or a cello or not that they don't have imposter syndrome because they do. But it's, you're so vulnerable. And so as a singing actor, how can you be vulnerable and also, you know, be authentic and and if you feel like. You know, this has to be perfect or there's only one way to be you really strip out the authenticity and the creativity.
[00:03:52] Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah. There's like the rigidity. If you think perfectionism is so rigid, you have to be this one way or else, so, or else is very vague, but it's like, that is not, and we don't even ever, we don't know what it is. It's vague. And that's anxiety being big like that. But it's. If you're not perfect, it's like you think that that is the worst possible thing or whatever this what else is, is so dreaded.
[00:04:20] Dr. Jodi Aman: You're embarrassed, you're kicked out, you won't get anywhere you're not successful, people won't like you anymore, right? The whole list goes on.
[00:04:28] Deborah Conquest: I'll never have a career. I'll never make it. I'll never make it. Why am I
[00:04:32] Dr. Jodi Aman: doing this? And I think a lot of people leave performance because they can't. It's too much.
[00:04:39] Dr. Jodi Aman: There's that, that, that fight or that conflict within them of, I, I love this. I don't want to do this. I think I have some skill to like, I'm not perfect and people are going to see it all the time and I'm never going to make it. And the competition is fierce. It really sets people up for competition, for sure.
[00:04:59] Deborah Conquest: Yeah, and I was just today, thinking about coming on here today, I was looking up the definition and the etymology of competition, and it comes from Comperare, the Italian, or the, I know the Italian word but Comperare in Latin, which is to pair or to match.
[00:05:16] Deborah Conquest: And it's not And it's not, you know, either or it's to pair two things together or to match two things together.
[00:05:25] Dr. Jodi Aman: I love when things get turned on their head, you know, something that is so divisive or so like shreds us really shreds us competition comparing ourselves. And we're in such a comparison culture. And I think it's those high expectations. Again, there's so high that we. are looking to other people to see if we're meeting them and what is the expectation.
[00:05:50] Dr. Jodi Aman: They're vague. The expectations are vague. Right? It's like you have to be coolest the best singer, the the thinnest, the youngest, the, you know the best actor, whatever that's even just in the performance, singing, acting. You have to be the best, but you're not really sure what that is. It's undefinable completely.
[00:06:08] Dr. Jodi Aman: Like perfectionism is undefinable. And so you think that you have to be more. You're looking to other people to see if you're cutting it and you're comparing yourself to people
[00:06:19] Deborah Conquest: that are like apples and oranges. Exactly. Apples and oranges. So perfect example, I'm also a competitive weightlifter and I didn't, did you know that?
[00:06:28] Deborah Conquest: Yeah. I love it. And I, I didn't start that until I was almost 50. Frankly, but I didn't say that. So I was almost 50. I know. And so I'm training for my next competition, which is in like 10 weeks or something. And I'm actually at the gym now, and this happened yesterday. So there's The little group of trainees that I'm in where these yesterday, there were only these two women.
[00:06:52] Deborah Conquest: So after we're all catching our breath after two and a half hours of working, Oh my gosh. Yes. Quite literally catching your breath. And we sit down and we're chit chatting and we've only had, I think, two previous workouts together and we start talking and. It, the comparison is just so dumb. I mean, I'm, I sit here and I know, know this, right?
[00:07:12] Deborah Conquest: And I can tell that these women are younger than me. And this one woman was a high school athlete and a college athlete. She's 25. And in my head, I'm comparing myself, right? Like how much she could lift compared to how much you lift. And I'm like, well, I still need to best her. And I've been like, right. So dumb.
[00:07:31] Deborah Conquest: So dumb. And then this other woman is like in her thirties. But in that moment, I felt like, yeah, but I still have to be better than they are. Like, what is that?
[00:07:41] Dr. Jodi Aman: It's completely apples and oranges. It's so pervasive. It's such a pervasive thing. You know you know, none of us are, are you know, none of us come in a little bit more, none of us are, Like we all grew up in this Western culture.
[00:07:56] Dr. Jodi Aman: And so we're all, we all have this thing that we're still fighting against. And maybe you've fought against it a lot and like a really made peace with yourself. And I hope you have, you can, it's possible. But like, it's, there's always going to be this whisper in these kind of times where it just like comes up in our face and you're like, I didn't tackle that
[00:08:15] Deborah Conquest: yet.
[00:08:15] Deborah Conquest: Yeah. And I, and it was so surprising because I'm like, I'm absolutely the strongest and it doesn't matter. Like I'm the oldest and I'm the strongest and I, but I'm built differently. Like this one, they're both much, I'm very short. Both of these women are much taller than I am. It's so like, I was like, I know this, you know, but it's, it is enmeshed in our culture.
[00:08:40] Deborah Conquest: I think, so even when we know it and we're aware of it, here I am comparing myself to someone half my age.
[00:08:45] Dr. Jodi Aman: I think the, I think the part where you know that you're making some progress is you have awareness of it and you're like a witness of yourself. You're like, did I just,
[00:08:53] Deborah Conquest: did
[00:08:55] Dr. Jodi Aman: I just say that? Okay. I understand why I said that.
[00:08:57] Dr. Jodi Aman: Like I grew up in Western college. Oops. I'm hitting my mic. I understand why he said that. You know, imposter syndrome gets all of us, you know, this self doubt that's so pervasive it gets us. But when you're making that progress in this, in on this healing journey, you're, you're noticing that you're doing it earlier and earlier, you know?
[00:09:17] Deborah Conquest: And I guess the right,
[00:09:18] Dr. Jodi Aman: that's where you can laugh maybe a little bit, but when you're witnessing yourself, you're like, okay, I'm doing this right there. And then like you, you're not attached as much to it when you're starting to witness. And that's, that is growth. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. And,
[00:09:32] Deborah Conquest: and both of these.
[00:09:33] Deborah Conquest: We'll say young women. Both of these young women were like, what? How old are you? And I was like,
[00:09:39] Dr. Jodi Aman: yeah. That is like amazing, right? Did they notice that you were comparing or did they, what did they notice?
[00:09:46] Deborah Conquest: No, I was comparing in my head. But, but we had never talked about how old anyone was and you know. Yeah.
[00:09:53] Deborah Conquest: I don't look my age. No, you don't. No, we don't look our ages. But you know, like, you don't know, I have no idea how old anybody is. So, and, and it's not, I, I try to think of myself like not ageist. But. I get in that arena and I'm like, yeah, but I want to out, outwit this person who's half my age.
[00:10:13] Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah, so the, like the comparison and then there's the word competition, right?
[00:10:18] Dr. Jodi Aman: Right. We have this competitive nature, but that goes to the biological, you know, that, that core biological survival thing that we have to survive in the world and, and not get, right. Bested, I guess, or not get beat up or we don't need that in these contexts.
[00:10:37] Deborah Conquest: Right. And especially the kind of lifting I do is power lifting and.
[00:10:41] Deborah Conquest: I'm really only competing against myself. There's nobody in my weight class and my age class, you know, it's me. So you're just like, I mean, getting your best. I'm just getting my best PR every time. And, and I'm just in it like to have fun. I don't want to hurt myself, you know, to get stronger. And that's about like inner strength as well as, you know physical strength.
[00:11:06] Deborah Conquest: And here I am like, well, how old are they? Well, you know, I want to be sure I'm always lifting. Hope they're not listening.
[00:11:13] Dr. Jodi Aman: I'm always lifting. They're going to relate. Deborah, if they are going to relate. I know. I did the same thing in my own head. Right. And then us women have to sit together and say, okay, let's like say these things out loud.
[00:11:26] Dr. Jodi Aman: So at the moment, we, all three of you could have been like, It's ridiculous. You're awesome. You're awesome. You're awesome. Like that's what it's so
[00:11:33] Deborah Conquest: true. And that's the ethos of, of powerlifting. And then I had this, you know, moment of. Of, of, like, different. I see that happen all the time with the singers I work with.
[00:11:46] Deborah Conquest: You know, the, the classic they're at an audition and they've got their ear, their ear to the door listening to the other people, the people who went in front of them or were coming after them. And the door is a liar. You can't possibly hear correctly, you know, through the door. And if we think about the door, maybe like a filter of other things, like.
[00:12:06] Deborah Conquest: You can't, you can't
[00:12:07] Dr. Jodi Aman: compare yourself like a literal filter on Instagram. Yeah. The literal filter, like there's the door. It's that real, what you're saying?
[00:12:17] Deborah Conquest: Yeah. Yeah. It's not real at all. And, and then You know, I to, I think especially, or my lived experiences as a woman in this society, we just like carry that around, like our albatross, like, well, I didn't get XYZ role, or I didn't get XYZ part, or I didn't win this competition, or,
[00:12:39] Dr. Jodi Aman: And then it affects, like, we have it in us, like, for that next audition.
[00:12:44] Dr. Jodi Aman: We hold on to it, you know? Do you notice when you're thinking about, because I know you see, you talk to people in all ages. When you notice people who are younger, do you feel like this comparison culture is actually getting worse? I
[00:12:58] Deborah Conquest: feel like it's getting better.
[00:12:59] Dr. Jodi Aman: Oh.
[00:12:59] Deborah Conquest: I feel like it's getting better.
[00:13:01] Deborah Conquest: Tell us. Or maybe I just happen to be lucky enough to work with enlightened folks. I think they're aware of it. Wow, that is beautiful.
[00:13:09] Dr. Jodi Aman: One of a kind, just like
[00:13:10] Deborah Conquest: you. Let's see what I have here. Mine is going to be, oh yeah, cool, different. Mine's almost like a flower situation. So I find I don't know. I, I really try.
[00:13:28] Deborah Conquest: It's getting better. You said. Yeah. To talk about, don't listen at the door, go in with blinders on like, and, and leave with blinders on, go and do your thing. Whether it's an audition, a competition of whatever. In fact, I don't generally send my students to competitions. There's lots of competitions out there.
[00:13:46] Deborah Conquest: Because I don't know, you know, yes, you can get food back, but I'm not sure how constructive sometimes that is. But, you know, competition exists and it's a real thing and it's out there, but I do feel like sometimes it's getting better. Some of the older folks I work with sometimes come in and the first thing they say is they hate my voice.
[00:14:07] Deborah Conquest: And to say you hate this, you know, part of yourself that is so expressive is so sad. I hate my voice.
[00:14:16] Dr. Jodi Aman: It's interesting to say that, to, to sign up for voice lessons and to say that I almost like love them, that they, that they're want to, there's like, there's this thing, I hate my voice or I feel this way, I have this relationship with my voice and I don't want to stay like this.
[00:14:36] Dr. Jodi Aman: And they reach out to you. I mean, that's like a whole different story if you're thinking about it. Yes, it's sad when we think about that. They hate their voice, but these are people who do not wanna stay hating their voice because they reached out to you and they want something different.
[00:14:49] Deborah Conquest: I love that.
[00:14:50] Deborah Conquest: And then when I tell them, everyone who at every first lesson tells me they hate their voice, they're like, what? Yes.
[00:14:59] Dr. Jodi Aman: Mm-hmm . Yes. So imposter syndrome says you're the only one who thinks. That you're not good enough because we look around and we see everybody and we think, Oh my God, everybody looks fine.
[00:15:12] Dr. Jodi Aman: They're happy. They're confident. They're walking around. They're auditioning. They look great. And we think we're the only one in our head thinking that we hate our voice.
[00:15:20] Deborah Conquest: And I think it's important to kind of normalize, you know what, everybody comes in wanting to figure out how to mix their chest voice and their head voice.
[00:15:29] Deborah Conquest: They can all either do one or the other. And almost everybody feels like, I hate my voice.
[00:15:36] Dr. Jodi Aman: It's like the grass is always greener. If you could belt, you want a high voice, you have a high voice, you want to belt. Exactly. It's, it's fascinating. Cause all the parts, like you always see the other person getting the parts, you know?
[00:15:50] Dr. Jodi Aman: So if you're a soprano, you're like,
[00:15:51] Deborah Conquest: ah, I want to belt. And so one thing I do is I have them record themselves. Which I find really helpful. So I use the Marco Polo app a lot and I have them, you know, report a snippet, 30 seconds or a minute or 15 seconds, and then send it to me. And I say, don't, don't post it on social media.
[00:16:12] Deborah Conquest: Don't you know, don't share it with your friends. Just listen to it, send it over to me. And then, and 9. 9 times out of 10, you know what they say, Oh my gosh, I can't believe how good I sound. I can't believe I look so good. I thought I was doing blah, blah, blah.
[00:16:29] Dr. Jodi Aman: So because they didn't, because they're sharing it with you and not sharing it with peers and not sharing it online.
[00:16:34] Dr. Jodi Aman: They're less critical and they're able to see their true self.
[00:16:37] Deborah Conquest: Well, no, they, they had no idea. They had nothing reflecting back how they were singing or acting. And so they weren't singing in front of a mirror. They just, you know, when we sing the sound vibrates off of the bones in our face. And so they're feeling that, but they're not, we can't probably hear what our voice sounds like.
[00:16:55] Deborah Conquest: It's like when you hear your voice on a, on a voicemail. Right. And you're like, Oh, I sound like that. Or on a video, a video on a podcast, you're like, well, I sound like that. And so I have them listen to themselves and they're always pleasantly surprised cause he had no idea, you know, and it's a good way of keeping track of, Oh my gosh, look at the progress I've done in here.
[00:17:17] Deborah Conquest: We're just even looking at themselves cause sometimes just watching a video of ourselves is just gross. Right. Yes. And we can watch somebody else audition or somebody else sing or perform or whatever and we can be more objective because it's someone else. And then I think watching ourselves on a video gives us a little objectivity.
[00:17:41] Dr. Jodi Aman: So then we're like the witness
[00:17:43] Deborah Conquest: again. Yeah.
[00:17:44] Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah, a
[00:17:45] Deborah Conquest: little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, baby steps. Baby steps.
[00:17:50] Dr. Jodi Aman: I love it. So Yeah, so so give me some examples about of when you are when you grapple with the imposter syndrome or when you
[00:18:02] Deborah Conquest: when I, when I don't and you don't, when I don't, so a perfect, a great example is well, I gave the example of the weightlifting.
[00:18:09] Deborah Conquest: Another example is when I meet up with my colleagues, so I'm in practice for myself. And once a year, I'll go to a meet up with colleagues and I'm also in some. You know, online work groups with, with colleagues. And I hear, Oh my gosh, they're doing blah, blah, blah. Or their studio has a wait list or they're working, you know, how many people do they have on Broadway right now?
[00:18:31] Deborah Conquest: And I only have this and yeah, but that's, you know, and then I'm like, Whoa, but I know how to teach people. I've had people on Broadway. Maybe I don't have one. So, you know, right this moment, or maybe I have a couple of holes in my schedule. I mean, it's so dumb, but again, it's that comparison. Then Which really could be that, you know, that classic thief, thief of joy and take me out of, you know, the joy of being their teacher and being their co conspirator in, in making music.
[00:19:02] Deborah Conquest: And Yeah, and like looking at numbers or looking at a spreadsheet or something. I think other examples are also you know, I look at some of my colleagues who maybe don't have children or aren't married or don't have a family and, I'm like, wow, look at all the crazy, amazing things they've done.
[00:19:21] Deborah Conquest: And I'm over, I was over here, you know, raising my family and I could have done blah, blah, blah. And I know I could have done that. But sometimes it's really tough, you know? And again, I can catch myself like almost instantaneously, like, yeah, but then I wouldn't think
[00:19:36] Dr. Jodi Aman: I got better. Like as you were, and maybe what changed?
[00:19:41] Dr. Jodi Aman: So as you were getting older, as you were witnessing yourself, or maybe it's because when you started teaching or whatever, I don't know,
[00:19:52] Dr. Jodi Aman: like, are you getting faster at noticing? Yes,
[00:19:55] Deborah Conquest: absolutely. I think so therapy, self reflection self awareness, you know, like inner work for me has been really key. And now I feel like in some ways I'm, well, it's still something I kind of. That crops up obviously just yesterday. I can at least see it, right?
[00:20:15] Deborah Conquest: And it's not like, oh my gosh, you know, I'm never going to make it or I'm never going to whatever it is, right? I, I think I'm, like,
[00:20:23] Dr. Jodi Aman: where was the, where was the corner that you turned when you, when you, maybe it was starting some self reflecting or starting some inner work. What was this? What's a story that gives us the example of, I don't know, the first time you noticed early or you.
[00:20:41] Dr. Jodi Aman: That I'm done with carrying this albatross of comparing and thinking I'm an imposter.
[00:20:50] Deborah Conquest: I can think of a recent example. Is that okay? Sure. About the very first example. So I just applied for something and I, and I had a colleague help me out with my resume and she picked up the phone and she was like, this is so fancy. You're so fancy. And I was like, I'm fancy. I was just asking her to like, quick.
[00:21:12] Deborah Conquest: Yeah. Yeah. And edit it. And that was really validating. It wasn't like, you know, blowing sunshine or anything, just like, you're so fancy. And to hear that, I think, you know, that kind of like positive. Validation from a colleague whose opinion I value kind of helped yeah to and feel like oh, yeah, I I have a right to be here and And I and I do know what I'm doing
[00:21:40] Dr. Jodi Aman: yeah, did you ever give power to somebody?
[00:21:43] Dr. Jodi Aman: Who didn't that you maybe shouldn't have trusted to have power to name
[00:21:47] Deborah Conquest: your worth for sure think that comes with being female, unfortunately. Yeah. And the older I got the less I cared about that.
[00:21:57] Dr. Jodi Aman: I, when you started lifting weights, yeah. Did that, did it make a difference?
[00:22:02] Deborah Conquest: Absolutely.
[00:22:03] Dr. Jodi Aman: Absolutely.
[00:22:03] Dr. Jodi Aman: In your confidence?
[00:22:05] Deborah Conquest: Absolutely. And yourself? Yeah. So we started lifting weights cause it was during COVID and of my dear friends from undergrad owned a gym and she was complaining about how we had to keep gyms closed. I remember back in the days.
[00:22:17] Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah.
[00:22:18] Deborah Conquest: And so I was going to turn 50 a couple of years later and I thought, you know, it's getting harder to get up off the floor.
[00:22:24] Deborah Conquest: I should like do something about that. I was never an athlete. I was never, I was a dancer, but I was never an athlete. And so I thought, well, let me start. Let me, you know, let me start. And so I started with her and I just loved it. And it was something I was really good at. And I would literally like bounce out of bed in the morning, like, woo.
[00:22:45] Deborah Conquest: And
[00:22:46] Dr. Jodi Aman: wait in person. No, this, no, this
[00:22:49] Deborah Conquest: was on Zoom. She was way on the other side of You know, the country. Okay. Just you and her. I love it. Coaching. And then she said, you know, do you want to join our powerlifting team? And I said, sure. What's, what's powerlifting? And and so, you know, the, the rest is history as I say, but it That feels like something like these snowflakes like so special that I do.
[00:23:09] Deborah Conquest: I, I don't really, you know, have a community of people. I don't know anybody who, you know, does it, does it. Although now I've just met these couple people at the gym. But yeah, it feels, I think feeling strong on the outside for me has helped me also kind of galvanize me to feel strong on the inside too.
[00:23:27] Deborah Conquest: Yeah. So sometimes it's inside out. Sometimes it's outside in. Sometimes it's like,
[00:23:32] Dr. Jodi Aman: All of it. Yeah. Going both ways. I think exercise and lifting weights has a huge impact on confidence. You know, like it's a secondary impact. Yeah. Of any movement is it builds your confidence. One is because you're sticking to something.
[00:23:50] Dr. Jodi Aman: You know, you're like make a commitment and you're sticking to it and make a commitment for yourself and that's going to raise your self esteem just that. But there's hormones that come in, there's endorphins that come in, but then your body gets stronger and overall you feel like I'm going to survive because I'm stronger.
[00:24:06] Dr. Jodi Aman: You know, there's a biological aspect of it deep in there. So I love that. So. When you started, so you had been on this journey and you're, you know, you were being aware of yourself and understanding when that self critic came in telling you you're an imposter. And then you, then when you started lifting it even was, you had more awareness.
[00:24:28] Dr. Jodi Aman: It was,
[00:24:30] Deborah Conquest: Yeah. I mean, I think that was sort of at a similar time where I transitioned from working in academia for someone else to working just for myself. And that was a real big risk and also a real, you know, awareness of like, Whoa, like, you know, I can, I can do this and pay the bills and not die and put food on the table.
[00:24:55] Deborah Conquest: Yeah. And so that feels pretty good. And I also, I'm not doing it. Ooh, look at you. That's beautiful. I'm not doing it in a vacuum. And I think that's important. I have a team. I have a coach. I have a therapist. I have friends. I have a cohort of colleagues. I have business coaches. So I wasn't just out there like you do all by myself, you know?
[00:25:18] Deborah Conquest: And I think that was really helpful. I think that
[00:25:20] Dr. Jodi Aman: makes a huge difference. We are social beings and we need community. And then if you have all those people and they're positive or they're uplifting
[00:25:29] Deborah Conquest: Yay.
[00:25:31] Dr. Jodi Aman: It's like a four leaf clover.
[00:25:32] Deborah Conquest: I was going to say, it looks like one of those nuclear alarm things.
[00:25:37] Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah, so it, it's when you're around people who lift you up or are positive or notice what you're doing, because being in this service business, I'm in there too, it is isolating in a lot of ways. So it's, it's you know, you're one on one with people, but also it's always about them. Yeah. Right? So when you're in a lesson with a student, it's, they're at the center.
[00:25:58] Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah. Yeah. It's their time. It's their time. And so you do see people, but it's, there's no, like it's isolating is how I'm trying to describe it. So I love that you have all these people to then reflect back who you are.
[00:26:13] Deborah Conquest: And the other thing I'll say is, I think when I was a kid. I used to think it's that like princess principle, right?
[00:26:21] Deborah Conquest: I used to think there was going to be one person who was going to help me reflect back all the things. And now I know, Oh, actually it does take a village. I need this person to go to the movies with, and this person I go hiking with, and this person I go snowshoeing with, and this person likes to do a podcast with.
[00:26:41] Deborah Conquest: Right. And so, and there's not one friend or one intimate partner who, It's all those things.
[00:26:48] Dr. Jodi Aman: Yeah, we are. I think that a lot of the problem I speak about a lot is that we're in smaller and smaller households. And we're not supposed to be like that. We're supposed to be in community. We need more than one person to be that everything for us.
[00:27:07] Dr. Jodi Aman: You know, we need touch. We need to problem solve with other people and other minds. We need to. And isn't it funny how we got in this, like, I'm going to put everything on just one person. I know, I know. It doesn't, it does not work. It does not work. What do you got? You have two over there.
[00:27:24] Deborah Conquest: I've got two here, this one and this one.
[00:27:27] Deborah Conquest: Yeah, I'll put them back up.
[00:27:29] Dr. Jodi Aman: So do you have any, before we end, we have a, we, we could do a couple more extra minutes here. Do you want to ask me any questions, any more questions about things? We covered a lot.
[00:27:38] Deborah Conquest: Yeah, so I actually just wrote an article
[00:27:42] Dr. Jodi Aman: I just want to see if there's a chat, but there wasn't,
[00:27:44] Deborah Conquest: for I just wrote an article that was published talking about What to do if you don't get the gig if you don't get hired if you don't get and because for some people I work with That can, that can be the end.
[00:27:58] Deborah Conquest: That can be like, I wish there was a therapist
[00:28:00] Dr. Jodi Aman: here because I wish there was a therapist. I wish there was a therapist in the room. I'm an imposter to answer this because really, you know, there's no like one answer. If you, if you have them think this way, they'll be fine because it's kind of like talking them through it or talking them, you know, it's how they're making meaning, right?
[00:28:22] Dr. Jodi Aman: If they have so much meaning around this one thing and this one thing is it, right? Then the devastation is going to be so huge. But if it's like, listen, there's always another show, right? Every three months is a different show. And you just, there's always another show. There's, it's
[00:28:39] Deborah Conquest: hard to, it's hard to see that though.
[00:28:41] Deborah Conquest: You know, if you, it's like putting all your eggs in one basket, like it's either this or nothing and that very binary way of thinking. And so, so I think
[00:28:50] Dr. Jodi Aman: that we have to really. Like you said, bring, you have a distance, right? And so the invitation is there and it may not land, but if you put that in, they stay, they hear it and it might not affect them now.
[00:29:04] Dr. Jodi Aman: It might affect them later. So that's one thing I, I have had to teach myself as a therapist that sometimes You can say all the right stuff, but it's just not going to land because they're just not ready to hear it or they're just saying that they in that difficult place, you know, or you know, and it's I'm not blaming them or anything I'm not blaming the other person but What is our responsibility like I offered it The, the belief or the other way to think about it is there and when they say yes to it, it'll drop down.
[00:29:40] Dr. Jodi Aman: And so if I'm starting to judge myself by other people's limitations, that is a huge problem, right? And so if I, of course, the validation has to come, the compassion has to come. We really understand that kind of devastation. We've seen, you know, we've experienced that kind of devastation ourselves that lost that part.
[00:30:02] Dr. Jodi Aman: And then, and that, so sticking with it for a bit, but then you kind of know when it goes a little bit crossing a line to like a, a negative spiral.
[00:30:13] Deborah Conquest: So I think I mean, some of my older or more mature folks who I, who I work with do know that. And I think some of the teens I work with, they just haven't lived that no experience.
[00:30:26] Deborah Conquest: So what, like, what could I offer them?
[00:30:30] Dr. Jodi Aman: I'm not sure what you're offering them is not exactly perfect. It probably is perfect. It just might not take away the pain. Right? And it may eventually take away the pain. It gives a good salve for the pain. It means you understand them. They have someone who really gets it.
[00:30:48] Dr. Jodi Aman: That in and of itself might be what they need.
[00:30:51] Deborah Conquest: They
[00:30:52] Dr. Jodi Aman: might, you know, we have pain, but can we get rid of the suffering? And inviting them that there's other ways to see it. It does land and sometimes it's just delayed. Does that make sense?
[00:31:05] Deborah Conquest: Yeah. And so how, you know, in this era of, in the era of instant gratification, how can we like sit with that for a minute until the delay
[00:31:17] Dr. Jodi Aman: is passed?
[00:31:17] Dr. Jodi Aman: I think that sometimes with young people, if they feel bad, they think I'm doing wrong. Oops, sorry. I'm hitting my mic. I'm doing something wrong. Cause I feel bad. I don't know how to handle this because I feel bad. And, and I think they have to know that it's okay to feel bad. It's uncomfortable, but it's safe and it's completely understandable.
[00:31:36] Dr. Jodi Aman: It's exactly what you'd expect when you had this kind of disappointment. And I've been there before and I felt it before and you know, it does get better, but it really, really sucks right now. This acknowledgement of that and you don't have to fix it. It'll fix itself. But your compassion. is not going to go unnoticed.
[00:31:56] Dr. Jodi Aman: Your compassion is going to be completely felt and appreciated, and it is healing. So, so I think the invitation is to say, you know, there's always another, this is the thing in this business, there's going to be, you're going to do, you're going to succeed a lot, and you're not going to sometimes, and it's going to be really hard, and but you're going to be okay, like you're going to be okay. Yeah. I mean, there's tons of parts, but that's what I keep telling Lily all the time. There's tons and tons and tons of work out there. There's so much work out there now more than ever. There is so they're, they're making so much stuff. There's so much work out there. And so yeah. And so you have to, if then is a mature, they'll get that, you know?
[00:32:42] Deborah Conquest: Yeah. And sometimes just widening their, You know, horizons such as it is, you know, like, Oh, get to college and see, Oh, there is more work to get to graduate school, move to New York, whatever. Oh, right. You know, there's a lot of work. There's more work or there are more opportunities where
[00:32:59] Dr. Jodi Aman: I'm going to
[00:33:00] Deborah Conquest: have to do a hundred auditions before I get.
[00:33:02] Deborah Conquest: Yeah.
[00:33:03] Dr. Jodi Aman: Right. Right. That's tough. And now there's like singing in all the TV and movies now, you know what I mean? So, so if you're an actor who sings, it's not just Broadway you have. Oh yeah. It's, it's pretty, it's a, it's a different world out there, but there's so many ways you could take it anyway. Anyway, well, thank you so much for watching our show on imposter syndrome.
[00:33:27] Dr. Jodi Aman: I appreciate all of you out there. And any other questions, any other thing you want to leave people before we, no, this was great.
[00:33:34] Deborah Conquest: It's good to not feel alone and imposter syndrome. Here's my last one.
[00:33:38] Dr. Jodi Aman: You are not alone. If you're feeling imposter syndrome, you're having a regular human response.
[00:33:43] Dr. Jodi Aman: To the context of our world, because this is the Western culture really gives us these high expectations. If we were, we knew the high expectations and we said, they're ridiculous. We can combat that. Like we could say, no, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm, I'm, I like, this is like, goals are relative, success is relative.
[00:34:05] Dr. Jodi Aman: You can't have somebody else define what success is. You know, results are relative. But what happens is the results are all that matters and our efforts don't matter. And our efforts are amazing, right? Our efforts are amazing. And we get so much more out of something when we put effort in than just the mere results of getting that part or something.
[00:34:25] Dr. Jodi Aman: There's so much we could learn along the way. So I guess that's, you know, if we widen our horizons about what it means to be successful and what it means to be how you want to be as a human,
[00:34:41] Deborah Conquest: you're there, you're
[00:34:43] Dr. Jodi Aman: there. I mean, I watch you online and, you know, we've met each other in a mom's group like a long, long time ago when our kids were little. Our kids are adults. Our kids are adults enough. But yeah, so I've been, I've been watching Deborah and because we've been in the same musical theater world, we see each other at tons of shows and she's the, she's the biggest cheerleader for her students.
[00:35:04] Dr. Jodi Aman: Just really if you are or can be one of Deborah's students, you are lucky, lucky, lucky. Oh, thank you. She will advocate for you. She'll find opportunities for you and you will learn how to shine. Through all the imposter syndrome that you feel, cause we know you feel it, cause this is the world we're in and we're, we're, you know, we, we as women have to stick together and remind each other that we are so much more awesome than we might not might see right now.
[00:35:31] Dr. Jodi Aman: And you are so awesome. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you. All right. I'm going to do my outro here and I'll see you next week. I'm on live every Monday at 8 p. m. and if you're watching this recording, come on live. So you could. add to the discussion. And this is my text list. So you get on my text list and you get texts from me and you could write me back privately.
[00:35:55] Dr. Jodi Aman: That'll be a lot of fun.