Overcoming Self-Doubt, Imposter Syndrome, And A Lack Of Self-Confidence In The Studio

Brian Hood (0:00)

This is the Six Figure Home Studio Podcast, Episode 31

SPEAKER_2 (0:03)

You're listening to the Six Figure Home Studio Podcast. The number one resource for running a profitable home recording studio.

Brian Hood (0:19)

Welcome back to another episode of the 6 Figure Home Studio Podcast. I am your host, Brian Hood. Mr. Chris Graham. How are you doing today, Chris Graham?

Chris Graham (0:25)

I am wonderful. It's beautiful in Ohio right now. It feels like I live in California or something like that. It's been like 72 and sunny.

Brian Hood (0:34)

Well, thanks for the weather update, Weatherman Graham. Weatherman Graham, I love that.

OK, so today's topic is something that I see as detrimental to a lot of people listening today, something that holds a lot of you back, something I've seen in countless people, not just in the audio world, but in my personal life. Growing up, I've seen this in myself growing up, and that is it's called a couple of things. You can call it the imposter syndrome. You can call it a lack of self-confidence. I think those two things go hand in hand. But at the end of the day, it's just the feeling of not being good enough, not being enough.

And during our conversation before this call, we were talking about where this comes from. Let's just say in relation to our careers, where does that come from? Not feeling good enough to do what we do for a living, to feel like you're an imposter, to feel like you are a fake or a fraud. A lot of people experience this. I felt that way myself.

Chris Graham (1:24)

Well, this reminds me of a conversation I saw in the Facebook group months ago, where someone brought up a question. They said, you know, I did a record for this guy. He was super happy, and he gave me like hundreds and hundreds of dollars tip.

He thought I didn't charge enough.

Brian Hood (1:40)

Yeah, I saw that post.

Chris Graham (1:41)

And I wasn't sure what to do about it. And there was a lot of conversation around like, well, I'll just apply it to his next project.

No, no, no. Take it. Don't feel guilty that he's paying you more because he thinks you're worth more. That was completely an imposter syndrome thing. And I've experienced that in my career where someone will pay me money or will offer to pay me more sometimes because they're super happy with the work and you feel guilty.

And that's weird because that's not real guilt. That's related to this imposter syndrome of not feeling good enough or not feeling qualified or not feeling worthy. When, in fact, I think in many cases, you see this all the time in our industry, the engineers great. They just have confidence issues and this weird feeling of guilt for accepting money for doing something they love.

Brian Hood (2:34)

And that's why I wanted to talk about this today, because I have seen this in our own community. I've seen people feel like they're not good enough to charge or they're not good enough from a talent level to do this full time. And then I go listen to their portfolio. I go check out their website. I go see what they've done. And they're incredible. They are well beyond the point of being able to do this full time. They are exceptional what they do. And they don't even think they're good enough to get paid anything yet.

And so going back to what I was talking about a second ago is where does that come from? What does that stem from in our lives?

And I think it's a couple things. And this is just me shooting from the hip here.

And feel free to disagree, Chris. But I think it comes from a lack of any amount of positive reinforcement, meaning it could be the way you were raised. So your family never supported what you did. They always wanted you to do something else. And so anytime you try to do your own thing, they pushed against that or they try to keep you from doing that thing. You see this in friends groups. You see this where anytime you're doing something against the norm, something quote unquote weird or something out of the norm, they try to pull you down. Your friends will try to pull you down by either insults or even just joking type insults, or they don't want to see you progress or get outside of what they're doing because it makes them feel bad.

And I've seen this in my own life growing up. I've seen this in a lot of friends. I've seen this in the 6 Figure Home Studio Facebook community. And, you know, there's a million ways this could have started, but I think if you get down to the core of what this is, I think it's not having that initial seed of confidence, not having that initial seed of confidence that you're able to grow. I mean, there's a million ways we can slice this, Chris, but do you have anything else to add as far as where this comes from?