In this episode of the CFO project podcast, we discuss imposter syndrome. And.

What comes of the CFO project podcast? Today we're talking all about imposter syndrome and some ways that you can overcome it, especially if you want to offer CFO Advisory services. To help me with the discussion, I've invited Jeff, the other co-founder of the CFO project. Jeff, how are you doing? I'm doing great. It's always a pleasure to be here.

Adam. Yeah. So I am excited about this topic because I don't know about you, but I've definitely deal have dealt with currently dealing with imposter syndrome. And and for those that are listening, they're not super familiar with it. Imposter syndrome sort of this this psychological occurrence where people with imposter syndrome doubt themselves, they doubt their accomplishments. They doubt their experiences.

They essentially have this fear of being exposed as a fraud. They say things like, I can't be a CFO, I'm going to I'm going to counter, I'm a bookkeeper. I can't be the chief financial officer for a business. I'm just not qualified. And by the way, Jeff, I researched to prepare for this episode. I researched there's actually a ton of of famous people that have dealt with imposter syndrome and are currently dealing with imposter syndrome.

Why is that? Well, because most people, most high achievers actually have imposter syndrome. So? So if you have imposter syndrome, that's a good sign because you're a high achiever. Tom Hanks, for instance, he was quoted by saying that no matter what I've done, there comes a point when you think, how did I get here? When are they going to discover that I am, in fact, a fraud and take everything from me?

I mean, I was Tom Hanks that said that, Sheryl Sandberg, she's she was the chief operating officer of Facebook. She said there are still days when I wake up feeling like a fraud. I'm not sure I should be where I am. Jeff, I know you've heard of Howard Schultz, the CEO, Starbucks or former CEO Starbucks. He said very few people, whether you've been in that job talking about being a CEO of a company, whether you've been in that job before or not, when you get into the seat and believe today, they are now qualified to be the CFO, it just doesn't happen.

They're not going to tell you that. But it's true. Essentially saying that that that even CEOs feel that are not qualified to be the CEO of a big company. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, that the one of the Supreme Court justices, she says, I've spent my years since Princeton, while at law school and in my various professional roles, not feeling completely a part of the worlds I inhabit.

I am always looking over my shoulder, wondering if I measure up and then finally, true. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Finally Maya Angelou, she said, I have written 11 books, but each time I think, oh, they're going to find out. Now I've run a game on everybody and they're going to find me out. Have you, Jeff, have you dealt with imposter syndrome?

But have you found other accountants? Constantly. Constantly. Adam, I know you know this. I'm a martial artist. Or at least I was at my health finally got in the way. But, I've got a second degree black belt. Yeah. All right. And I also have a black belt in another art. And what's really weird is I realized that I am more afraid of a fight now than I have ever been.

And the reason is, is because I know what I don't know. I'm more aware of what I don't know. And the more you know about any subject, the more you realize there are other people who know other things that you don't know. Yeah. And so it's a constant evolution, if you will. And in the landscape is constantly changing.

Like even to this day. I've been doing this for many, many, many, many decades now. Yeah. And I still feel it. And I still am learning. And that's what makes this exciting, by the way. It makes this profession fun. If I had to do traditional accounting like everybody thinks of it, I would have shot myself years ago. But oh my goodness.

Yeah. Oh, but but this is fun because you're constantly learning. But you also have to recognize that you'll never, ever know everything. Yeah, it's just impossible. Totally. And the landscape I keep talking about that changes the technology. I mean, I was in the first group not to say I was the first person of people adapting many computers in their practices.

And I remember my first, if you will, portable computer had two ten megabyte floppy drives, and that was what we ran our computers on. Oh, this is the 80s. I go back even further. The late, the late 70s, early 70s. Okay, yeah. Early 80s is when I bought my first computer. Okay. And it was $7,500 for those two floppy, ten megabyte floppy drives.

I mean, it was a lot of money back then. Yeah, but but the point is now we're going through another technological change with AI. Yeah. The the landscape is always changing. So you always feel like you're behind the eight ball. And that's kind of it. But you have to acknowledge it. And once you acknowledge it, you could take action and overcome your fears.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm glad that you said that. You know, you you know, you also brought up a good point that the more you know about a topic, the more you you know, you don't know about a topic. And there's actually two psychologists and the I think in the 90s that coined this, their last names were Dunning and Kruger.

And it's now coined the Dunning-Kruger syndrome, where they documented that the more people know about a topic, the more they don't know. But the opposite is also true. The less somebody knows about a topic, the more they think they know. Which is why there's there's first year medical students who think they are essentially God's gift to medicine. They know everything about medicine that think they know more than somebody that's been in the field, that that has specialized in a very specific type of medicine for 40 years, because they know so much about that topic that they know there's a lot they don't know.

Right? So this this came create imposter syndrome. But as we'll talk about, we're going to talk about six, six, ways to overcome imposter syndrome. But as you as you'll see, you know, having imposter syndrome is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it if you don't have imposter syndrome, it means that either you're crazy or you probably are a fraud and probably shouldn't be offering CFO services.

But, but we're going to go through these six, six ways to overcome imposter syndrome. So I'm going to kick it off. Jeff, if you don't mind. And the first way to overcome imposter syndrome, in my opinion, is to get comfortable with the idea that most high achievers have imposter syndrome. And in other words, you know, those celebrities, those famous people that that I talked about earlier, most high achievers, like, I know you are a high achiever, I'm a high achiever and most high achievers.

I know we have imposter syndrome and that's a good thing. So we can't think of imposter syndrome as this negative ball and chain that we're carrying around. Imposter syndrome means that you care so much about about your as a CFO advisor, given the right advice and making sure you're doing right by your client, you care so much about it that you always question whether or not you're giving the right advice.

In fact, you could even take the opposite stance that feeling like an imposter is a really good thing, because then you're under you're aware of new knowledge, new opportunities. It makes you a little bit hesitant to say with definition, hey, I know this better than anybody else. Yeah. And and to me, it actually could serve as an incentive to always be making yourself better.

Yeah, absolutely. So I look at that as a positive not a negative. Yeah. Well that's what I'm saying. I think we should get comfortable. That's the that's the, the the the tip here. We should get comfortable with the idea that most high achievers have imposter syndrome. And that's a good thing. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely agree. Everybody listening. If you haven't already, sign up for our five minute weekly email with practical tips for accountants and bookkeepers to escape the accountants trap.

Go to the CFO project.com/newsletter. So what do you think? What's what's another way to overcome imposter syndrome? Well, there's something I've noticed in our profession is that we tend to underestimate what we know. And this actually ties to imposter syndrome quite heavily. We underestimated because we forgot how long it took us to learn it, and that becomes like a ball and chain.

We think that our knowledge, our specialty language, is something everybody has. Why? Because we talk that language all the time. We're fluent, if you will, in the language of accounting. But we also tend, as we're getting more and more fluent in our own language, comfortable in our skin, if you will. We over estimate what are what business owners know, what other people know, and we take it for granted and we end up talking at a level they can't even understand.

But but there's there's two sides of this coin, Adam. We overestimate. We overestimate what our audience knows. And that also makes us feel like an imposter. So we're always trying to give a little more than we should be. Yeah. And then we underestimate our knowledge because the more you work in something, the easier it gets. Yeah. And the easier it gets.

You forget that that it was hard for you at some point. Yeah. I don't know anybody who's done a perfect set of books coming right out of college or a bookkeeping class or something of that nature. We need input. We need to figure out how we could do things better. Yeah. But as we figured it out, once we figure it out, we say, oh, everybody knows this.

Yeah. Why did it take me so long to figure it out? I remember one of my first clients. I was explaining to him, you know, when I first started doing CFO advisory work, I thought I had to give all this value. And so I went to one of my first meetings with a client. I was overly prepared. I had all these ratio analysis and all of these reports of graphs printed out in color and color, and it was just this fancy thing, and I was so proud of it.

And then I get to the meeting and realize, and we start talking, and I realize that the client, hey, doesn't care about all that stuff. They want you to talk like a human, not an accountant. But at the same time, I take it for granted. When I ran my previous business that I understood accounting, when I started talking to this new client, I realized he didn't understand any thing about accounting or numbers or financials, and that's not how he communicated.

He was running his business with a whole different set of knowledge that had nothing to do with numbers, so I couldn't communicate to him in that way. So we we, we tend to underestimate or like, you're right, we tend to overestimate what we think our clients know. Right. And and we're proving ourselves, which we don't have to do.

Yeah, but you brought up a good thing, a good concept, the real skill. And I've noticed this with very intelligent, high, achievers. The real skill is can you break down your knowledge into simple language and. Yeah. And that's a hard skill. Yeah, that's probably the hardest skill I've ever had to learn once I started getting, if you will, proficient at being a CFO for small to medium sized businesses, my hardest skill was learning how to communicate with people.

Yeah, in a language they understand. Totally. And then that's something that that that everybody listening should continuously practice. You'll never be perfect at it. Not none of us are. But if you could communicate to a non accounting or non-financial business owner, hey, you're value and also be communicate advice and get them to take your advice. You will be non unstoppable as a CFO because those two things communicating your value why they need you in the first place and then how in communicating what you want them to do and actually get them to take action.

You'll be unstoppable like I was. It reminds me of in college. I took I was horrible at math. I hated math, honestly, and I took this like advanced like calculus or Trig class or whatever by this professor who was a genius when it came to math. He wrote the textbook. This guy's a genius. But he could not to save his life, teach a fish how to swim.

He just couldn't. What was he doing in that role as a professor? He was a. So just because you, you know, just because you're you may be super smart at one thing, but if you can't communicate it to somebody who doesn't understand that thing, then you'll fail at a job. At a job, being a teacher. Same with CFO Advisory Services, same thing, which is actually a good thing.

We don't have to be a genius. We just have to be able to get good at communicating. And the word teacher is so applicable. Yeah. Because they're they these business owners want guidance. They want somebody to teach them the skills of business and financial management. Notice I didn't say accounting. Yeah. And they're desperate for that. Hey they're out of line with the CFO project podcast.

Are you an employed accountant or bookkeeper that would like to start an advisory service on the side? Well, we have a free training for you called Side Hustle CFO, where we'll show you how to start a business on the side, offering CFO and advisory services to small business owners. We conduct this training every Friday at 3:00 pm eastern and 12:00 pm Pacific.

Go to the CFO project. Com and click on Free trainings to register. Weight number three to overcome imposter syndrome is that we need to realize we as CFO advisors to small and medium sized businesses. We need to realize that the skills and experience needed to be a small business CFO is much different than being a big business CFO.

This hopefully will let a lot of us off the hook when it comes to imposter syndrome. To say I am a CFO does not necessarily mean that you're you should be qualified to be Microsoft CFO in order to say I'm a CFO. Just like if I say I'm a basketball coach to a group of 55 year olds, does it mean that I should also feel that I should be qualified to be the basketball coach for the Atlanta Hawks?

Is is the same title basketball coach, but it's two different sets of skills and experiences. Need it. And the good news is, is that most businesses on earth are small. In fact, 99% of all businesses are small, and only 9% of businesses make more than a million in annual revenue, which is nuts to think about. So most businesses on Earth are small, and they need somebody that that can, just like we talked about it.

Or you can clearly explain their business in a way that makes sense to them and inspire them enough to get them to take action on the right things needed to move the needle to improve their business. If we can do that, then we will massively succeed as a CFO. Not saying that you should. In order to do that, you also have to be qualified to be Microsoft CFO today because Microsoft and like most big businesses, they need a they need a chief financial officer that does a completely different set of things for the business that are really not required to be that a small business requires.

What do you think about that, Jeff, I absolutely agree, like being a, a big, a large company CFO relies a lot on financial strategy, compliance with very complex, rules. The SEC, GAAP, having international knowledge, reporting, Investor relations. Whereas for a small business, you're looking at hands on problem solving, advising, education, helping them with simpler things.

I mean, think about this. Big businesses have lots of people and lots of resources. Small businesses don't. So you're working with a different set of constraints than a big business. And we share those constraints. If we own our own practices and we understand those constraints and we we're running it like a business, not like a high level manager.

Yeah. And there's a lot of difference in the skill sets and and most of us have one we don't realize it, but we do. But when you compare yourself to a CFO of Microsoft, that is a different skill set. It's a very, very technical skill set, whereas this is a very hands on skill set. Yeah. And and to be quite frank with you, I find it very invigorating.

Yeah. Sometimes frustrating because the problems and the constraints, leave you a lot less choices. Yeah, but you're also much more nimble in the small business environment. Yeah. So I agree. I agree. So what's another way to overcome imposter syndrome? Well part of it is your network. And and let me be be frank about that. I worked for a big CPA.

Firm when I started my career and when I left and went into industry, it was like I missed the camaraderie. I missed the intellectual, if you will, conversations. I miss the ability to have people around me who could help me solve problems and and it was lonely. Just like any other business owner. You get lonely. And and what I mean by that is having people at your own level to talk to.

So one of the things that I find that helps with imposter syndrome is finding groups to, to avoid this isolation. To find groups that help me troubleshoot, to find groups that hold me accountable and help me develop. And that's the one thing I missed when I left public accounting, which I'm going to do, a little bit.

I love the CFO project because we have that ability with, with hundreds of different people to communicate and get input into some of the solutions we could come up with. Yeah, yeah. That, that that's a I agree with you. It is a shameless plug. But I mean that's why we created the CFO project in part is because we wanted a group of people that were also doing something like what we're doing to lean on for support and advice and accountability and, and having a group of people around you that are doing the same things as is, that will help with your confidence.

So much, so much. And you also realize that every one of us is in the same boat. Yeah. And and so it's a different level of camaraderie. Yeah, totally. It's a different family. Yeah. Because because, you know, you brought up earlier we're small business owners too. If you if you own, whether you own a bookkeeping firm, a tax, a firm or a or a CFO firm, you're also a small business owner.

And like most small business owners, it's lonely. There's not that many people to turn to. For real help, you need to be a part of other people that are doing the same thing you're doing that would help. That would help with your mental and emotional state. And and it's just way more fun being a part of other people to lean on for advice and accountability.

Absolutely. All right. So another way to overcome imposter syndrome is to adhere to this idea called the confidence competence loop. Most people, when they think that when they when they want to tackle something that's hard, like becoming a CFO advisor, for instance, they think they need all the confidence that need to be competent in being a CFO advisor before they go out and start.

The problem with that is that most people with any skill, you can't be competent. And you do. You actually do it. It's like riding a bike. You can't be competent at riding a bike until you actually get on the bike. So if competence is required to start something, then nobody will ever start anything. Which is why a lot of people on earth don't really do big things in their lives, because they don't be.

They feel that I have to have this competence first. So the best thing to do is to take action. Action will then breed competence because once you get good at something like riding a bike, then you'll become more competence. And what does competence? When you have competence in a skill, what does that give you? It gives you confidence.

And then more confidence. More confidence you have, the more action you will want to take. So it's this loop that continuously spirals upwards, but you can never enter that loop until you take action. As long as you think that you have to have all this competence. I need to be a C if I didn't learn everything before I can start offering this to clients or to start giving advice to people, you'll never and you'll never take off.

Because. Because you won't had that competence until you actually do it. You get back to college, you learn all this stuff in college, right? And the reason they teach you all this stuff is they never know what you're going to need. And if you think back about college and the actual knowledge that you took away, I'll bet you it's less than 1% of everything you learned.

Totally. Okay. And and so where do you really learn? Where do you really learn? By doing something right. Taking action. Right. It goes back to something I said earlier is none of us were able to do a great set of books the second we got out of college or finished the bookkeeping or, service, we we need to get out there and pitch, if you will, or get at bat, but you can't bat 30, 300 if you will.

If you've never gotten up to bat. Right, right thing. Think about this, okay? When you were a kid, did you get on that bike and ride it the first time? No, no. But now, at least for me, I've taught my kids how to ride a bike. But I never consciously thought about that is the same thing. Yeah it is.

You get to a point where you become the teacher. Where the student becomes the teacher. And that's part of this confidence thing. Yeah, yeah. But then I'll go back to imposter syndrome. You never know it all. You're going to always learn from somebody else if you're in the right circles. Totally. And that actually leads us to our last way to overcome imposter syndrome.

Yeah. And that is that you got to embrace continuous learning. You can't be afraid of it. The landscape is always changing. Matter of fact, the only constant in business is change. Everything is changing. We're going through a major upheaval right now. Okay, I remember when the meaning computers came out. That was a major upheaval in the way we ran businesses.

Okay, so finance is always evolving. Solutions are always evolving. The basics haven't changed in hundreds of years, if not thousands, which is what I love about being the CFO. We don't have transactional knowledge, we have real knowledge. And but we have to be aware. Like, for instance, when I started my practice, I advertised in a newspaper. Would you even think of that in today's what's the news market?

What? What's a newspaper? Yeah. What's a newspaper? That's exactly right. Yeah. Okay. But like radio or are we using podcasts now? Yeah. Think about the evolution of how we're getting the message out. Yeah. It's changed. The landscape is out. But the ultimate goal of the message is to tell people what's in it for them. The message hasn't changed.

That's right. It's the megaphone that's changed. That's right. So so you're you're constantly learning in this profession. Yeah. As in any profession. You know, like, you could either bury your head in the sand, hope things go back to the way they were or embrace. What's the change? Yeah. And I found that in order to succeed over the long term, you have to embrace change, which means you're constantly learning, whether it's from books, whether it's from industries like, I know I take things from one industry and bring it to another, and everybody thinks I'm a rocket scientist.

Yeah. It's just I got exposed to a new idea and twisted it to work in another industry. And then, of course, I have my even to this day, I have my mentors. Yeah, I have my community where I'm constantly learning new things. Yeah. I think the most dangerous type of person on earth is somebody that thinks they know everything.

I mean, and that that if you think about that's like the opposite of imposter syndrome, that somebody probably is a fraud. They just have this high enough. I don't know how they got it, but this high huge ego or confidence level, they think they know everything and they and they're better than than people that actually do know everything.

And those people are dangerous. Those people are dangerous. Absolutely agree. Well, yeah, there's been a fantastic discussion. So we've talked about six ways to overcome imposter syndrome. The first is get comfortable with the idea that most high achievers have imposter syndrome, too. We as the second way is, is to understand that we as CFO advisors tend to underestimate what we know and overestimate work.

What our clients know. Number three, is that we need to realize that the skills and experience needed to be a small business CFO is much different than being a big business CFO. Number four, we need to find other CFO advisors to lean on for support, advice, and accountability. Number five, adhere to this idea called the confidence competence loop, where you start with action first.

Instead of feeling like you have to have competence in something. And number six, embrace continuous learning because no one knows everything. Jeff. Final thoughts I just think if you would post these on your wall, these six things, it will give you a lot of confidence as you go forward, knowing that you're not alone and that we're all, if you're good, we're all experiencing it.

Yeah. And and just take action. I if I were to summit in two words take action. Yeah. Totally. And and again if you, if you're, if you're somebody that really just does like taking action and you would also like to find other CFO advisors to lean on for support and accountability. And, and you want training and understanding on how to offer CFO advisor service.

I do encourage you to check out our resources, our training, and are done with the mentorship program at the CFO project. So just just literally go to the CFO project.com and there's a slew of free resources and trainings and calculators that you can use to help you sort of understand what it's what it may look like to become a CFO advisor and to help take steps to become a CFO advisor.

So on behalf of everybody at the CFO project, thank you so much for listening or watching today's episode. Again, if you haven't already, sign up for our five minute weekly email with practical tips just for accountants and bookkeepers to escape. The accountants trap, go to the CFO Project Comm forward slash newsletter. All right, see you next time on the CFO project podcast.