Clare Josa | Author And Keynote Speaker

UK's Foremost Imposter Syndrome Expert, International Keynote Speaker & 8x Author

imposter syndrome

The Curse Of Comparisonitis – And Its BFF: Imposter Syndrome

Soul Led Leaders

The 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study showed that 77% of women and 60% of men who struggled with Imposter Syndrome regularly compare themselves to others and judge themselves to be lacking, even if the external evidence shows the opposite. These figures were even higher when I looked at just entrepreneurs, who tend to spend more time online and on social media, so have more opportunity to compare themselves with others.

Social media is full of glossy images of people looking their best, doing amazing things and wanting the world to validate and accept them, even if that’s not our conscious intention when we share such posts. And the social media sites’ algorithms mean that the images that show up in our feed are the most popular – so we’re not just comparing our 6am-start bags-under-the-eyes grogginess with someone else’s ‘highlight reel’.

We compare our lives with the algorithm’s curated list of the best of someone else’s. It’s far too easy to find ourselves lacking.

And this can be a massive trigger for Imposter Syndrome.

Despite what we might think about the world of internet trolls, our harshest critic is still the one inside us. And that’s when Imposter Syndrome comes out to play.

Comparisonitis forgets that we don’t see the struggle and stress others went through, so we make assumptions about how easy it was for them. Imposter Syndrome gets us writing our own success off as luck, whilst we conclude that they must have talent to be achieving so much.

When we compare ourselves to others and judge ourselves to be lacking, it can cause us to give up on our dreams. Our confidence nose dives, we pour a swimming pool full of ice-cold water onto the fire of our ambitions and we grind to a halt on taking inspired action. We are subconsciously giving our power over what we will achieve and create to the person we compared ourselves to, despite the fact that they never asked for it.

You'll never achieve your dreams while you're obsessing about what others are doing - or what they might think of you.Click To Tweet

The more you deal with your hidden inner blocks and secret confidence-trashers, the less you’ll feel the need to compare yourself with others;
and the less it will bother you, even if you do.

Comparisonitis causes us to forget what we can do, dismissing our achievements with a single ‘but’.

Each of us is on a unique journey, but it takes courage and perspective to see that. Comparing ourselves to others drains our energy and confidence. It can even cause us to secretly resent their success, feeling that life is somehow not ‘fair’, triggering the biochemical reactions of the emotion better known as ‘jealousy’ in your body, the self-talk thoughts, and the emotions that go with that mind-story.

It also makes us more likely to self-sabotage, because those judgemental mind-stories programme us to believe that success is ‘bad’ and will cause resentment and jealousy from others; that they’ll no longer like us if we succeed. The stories we tell ourselves about others make us worry that others may say the same about us, if we allow ourselves to be successful. This can be a key factor for someone not applying for a promotion or opportunity they know they deserve, or from not ‘owning’ their achievements after a successful project and attributing them to the wider team.

When you are truly comfortable in your own skin, the need to compare yourself to others disappears. Is it finally time to ditch Imposter Syndrome? Click To Tweet

The ability for others to unwittingly press the buttons you have cleared out disappears. And you reach a stage where secret jealousy and resentment no longer play a part in your 3 a.m. dialogue.

On those few occasions when it does, it’s always possible to turn it into an opportunity to listen to your inner wisdom and make changes.

My book Ditching Imposter Syndrome guides you through exactly how to do this. And I show you exactly how to set yourself free from the curse of comparisonitis on page 202. So if you’re hungry to finally feel good enough and to become the leader you were born to be, make sure you’ve got your copy of Ditching Imposter Syndrome here.

Are You Falling Into The Leadership Label Trap?

soul led leadership

And I’m not talking about your clothes. Though the leadership label trap is something we often end up paying far too much for the privilege of falling for. I’m talking about the single biggest trigger for staying stuck, dreaming big but playing small.

There’s modern epidemic in the business leadership world is our addiction to labelling ourselves. And when I talk about leadership, I’m not restricting my definition to those with ‘CEO’ on their business card. I strongly believe that everyone who inspires others to work with them to create a common vision is, in their own way, a leader. This applies whether you’re the CEO of a multinational company or just starting out on your career. We all need to show leadership in some way.

Thousands of books have been published on leadership, with models and archetypes and personality profiling, all to help us to lead, but there’s a flaw I see in the approaches in so many of these:

Most of them are about what we need to do, to lead.

As we covered in the iceberg model, that’s just the surface-level symptom. Making changes at the behavioural level doesn’t shift our beliefs or values or sense of identity.

If what we’re doing is out of kilter with who we see ourselves as being, then we create inner conflict, self-doubt and eventually Imposter Syndrome. And those labels can make this worse.

These are tools you can use once you have cleared out the blocks, fears and secret-self-sabotage patterns. When you line up that version of you with surface-level strategies, you can create breakthroughs.

What tends to happen, instead, is that those models and archetypes and profiling systems is that they give us permission to live inside new comfort zones. The labels we are given become the new boxes within which we limit our behaviours. I have lost count of the number of times someone has excitedly talked about the results they got on some leadership or team-building profiling test, proudly announcing “I am an [insert catchy profiling name here]!”

A personality test can only tell you about your behaviour. It can’t tell you who you really are. Yet we allow them to change how we see ourselves.

Whilst such tests can help us to become aware of some of the seemingly random things we do (we all love a good personality quiz!), at a deeply subconscious level many of us then fall into the trap of morphing our sense of who we are to overlay the profiled category. Say someone is told they’re an instigator, for example, they will start to show more behaviour that matches that label.

But other behaviours they previously had that might have been useful fall away, because they don’t match the label, so they might become less collaborative, whereas that was previously one of their strengths. You hear them proudly announcing things they won’t do any more – “Oh, I’m not going to the planning meeting this week, because I am an Instigator! You need Joe – he was an Implementer.” And Joe stops speaking up about his brilliant ideas because Fred is the Instigator, so that’s his realm.

The label has changed how they see themselves, so their beliefs, thoughts and actions line up to match.

Labels become the limits on our leadership.

They are like masks behind which we get to feel safe. They risk becoming switches that flick on the traits that are permitted by that label and that flick off those that aren’t.

In the entrepreneurial world, I meet many business owners who have had their Myers-Briggs profile done. Often, one of the first things they will say to you is, “I’m an ENTJ!” I have even seen some printing the on their business cards. They have their one-of-sixteen-boxes label and they subconsciously conform to it, not realising that each of these categorisations is, in fact, a context-dependent sliding scale. Humans are infinitely more complex than a model that had to be simplified in order to teach it and test it.

You see them switching off their intuition because the ‘J’ for ‘judging’ means they are supposed to be evidence-based in their decision-making. And they obey.

As we set about conforming to the label we were given, we forget that these models are based on external behaviours, but our behaviours are surface-level actions – symptoms and effects – not the causal level of who we really are.

In addition, our behaviours change, depending on what we’re trying to do. Different environments and different roles, we have different behavioural habits. To use the Myers-Briggs ‘J’ as an example, in the context of making financial decisions of my business, there’s a major chunk of backing that decision with data, to support my intuition – a ‘J’. When it comes to choosing whether or not to trust someone, however, my intuition has by far the larger say – a ‘P’.

Someone might use lots of data for making a recommendation to a client on a major issue that is unfamiliar to them, but might act mainly on intuition for smaller problems that they have encountered before. So whether a person would get ‘J’ or ‘P’ in the test would depend on the contexts used in the questions.

It would be more accurate for someone to say, “I run an ENTJ preference in the context of leading my team in a corporate environment when we are working on positively-framed solutions to low-impact problems.”

But that’s not quite so catchy!

Whilst these profiling systems can be helpful in raising our awareness of our behavioural preferences, so we can choose whether or not we want to keep specific habits. We need to be careful not to let them influence our sense of who we really are, to become comfort zone boxes and limits on how we express ourselves. I’m not saying that these models are in anyway bad or flawed. But they can only assess our behaviours, not tell us who we are.

Leadership profiles are intended to give us insights, not instructions. Are you falling into the label trap? Click To Tweet

And there’s another problem with this kind of profiling and label-creating: most of us are living life – exhibiting behaviours – that are an adapted version of who we really are. We have picked up strategies and ‘coping mechanisms’ from a very young age to handle what life throws at us. These commonly lead to us showing the world a partially shut-down and ‘safe’ version of who we really are. But all these models can test is that externally-visible behaviour. So the models aren’t able to be accurate. They can’t see to that deeper level. And the label you get given is the label that belongs to the constricted, adapted version of you; not the real you inside, because that can’t be questionnaired into a box.

These labels can keep us stuck in the habits we secretly wish we could ditch. And they become a badge of honour or even virtual armour.

“Oh, I hate networking, because I’m an introvert!”

Someone making this statement is much more likely to not enjoy a networking event because they will be telling themselves stories about how and why they hate them. This will shift their thoughts, emotions and physiology to make it harder for others to connect with them. And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But the person feels vindicated, because the results of some survey they did said they were an introvert and therefore would hate networking events and they have been proved right, because they just put up with two hours of chit-chat hell.

All three of the classic Inner Critic triggers are there in that statement. (More on that in step two of Ditching Imposter Syndrome).

It’s a generalisation – there’s no hint that hating networking events is something that only happens sometimes or is an experience over which they have any choice.

It’s a distortion because it is conflating a behaviour preference – running an introvert pattern – with their sense of identity.

It’s a deletion because they are filtering out all previous experiences of networking that didn’t fall into the ‘hate’ category and might even have been fun.

Yet this badge of honour that came from the label will limit how they behave, whether they enjoy themselves, how they filter the sensory perception of networking events, and how people experience meeting them. That label becomes a subconscious excuse to play it safe and to avoid connecting with others.

Great leadership doesn’t need models and archetypes and strategies and labels. It needs people with the vision and the passion to inspire others towards achieving results that could never be achieved by a single person – who have got out of their own way.

It’s time to let go of our labels and to frisbee those masks into the recycling bin.

Have You Been Falling For The Leadership Label Trap?

I’m curious: which of your labels might you choose to let go of today?

x Clare

Ditching Imposter Syndrome

This article is from Clare’s book Ditching Imposter Syndrome: How To Finally Feel Good Enough And Become The Leader You Were Born To Be.

You can get your copy here.

Imposter Syndrome: It’s Time To Stop Pretending

soul led leadership

Whenever I go into a business to run an info-session on ditching Imposter Syndrome, there will be three types of people in the audience: those who nod so much their heads might drop off, those who sidle up to me afterwards and thank me for helping them to see what was going on for them, and those who make a beeline to tell me why there’s no such thing as Imposter Syndrome and that talking about it will damage their company.

They see Imposter Syndrome as an excuse for poor performance.

And they claim they don’t struggle with it themselves.

The further up a company’s ladder someone goes, the more likely someone is to claim they don’t have Imposter Syndrome, according to the initial results of the 2019 Imposter Syndrome Research Study. And the more unacceptable it is to admit it and ask for help. Yet of those who have responded to the quantitative survey so far (admittedly a self-selecting bunch), of those who claim they never get Imposter Syndrome, over 90% show clear signs of it, from their self-reported behaviour and self-talk. Yes – you read that right. 90%.

These people often see Imposter Syndrome as a form of ‘trendy self-doubt’ (yes, that phrase was thrown at me last week) that only affects people who don’t deserve to be leaders.

The Imposter-Syndrome-Self-Doubt Confusion

There’s a difference between Imposter Syndrome and self-doubt and it’s easy to get confused.

Self-doubt happens when we think our skills or experience aren’t enough for a role. It’s behaviour-focused. We can deal with self-doubt by gaining more experience and getting training or support for our skills. The self-talk that goes with it is:

“I can’t do that.”

This is a behavioural-level statement. It is the realm of positive thinking, affirmations and mindset work to help with limiting beliefs.

Imposter Syndrome is a bigger beast. And it often doesn’t come out to play its ugly game until after someone is promoted beyond their subconscious comfort zone.

It hangs around at the deeply unconscious ‘identity’ level, which mindset work and positive affirmations can’t touch:

“Who am I, to do that?”

“What if they find out I am not good enough?”

“What if they spot that I am a fraud?”

All of these are about who you are, not what you do. So you need to do the deeper identity-level work, to clear these patterns, before they cause someone to self-sabotage, without realising.

How does Imposter Syndrome hit their employer?

Here are five key behaviours triggered by Imposter Syndrome, based on the initial analysis of the research study:

  • Not speaking up in meetings with great ideas
  • Turning down ‘golden opportunities’
  • Becoming a perfectionist micro-manager – even hyper-critical
  • Stress and anxiety affecting performance
  • Sabotaging projects that are outside of their safe-zone and covering their tracks
  • Not asking for a promotion or pay rise they know they deserve and resenting it, often then leaving the company when others get promoted ahead of them

Many senior managers I speak to are reluctant (I’m putting that politely) to initiate the conversation about Imposter Syndrome, in case it opens the floodgates to woe-is-me drama-stories at the water cooler and emotional out-pourings in meeting.

And this is where we’ve got to stop pretending.

In this Mental Health Awareness week, people in the public eye are starting to admit that they struggle with Imposter Syndrome, and that it can lead to stress, anxiety, worrying and mental health issues.

It does this in a much more profound way than self-doubt, because Imposter Syndrome is, fundamentally, about self-judgement and deciding we are not good enough. Bottling this up, pushing on through and pretending that everything is ok is a recipe for a mental health disaster.

Talking about ‘feeling like a fraud’ needs to become as acceptable as asking for, say, time management training.

Any business saying it doesn’t care about Imposter Syndrome is actually saying it doesn’t care about its employees.

There is so much you can do to support a team member in ditching Imposter Syndrome that really there is no excuse for a company pretending it doesn’t exist. Rather than ignoring it, we need to be creating a culture where admitting to it, clearing it out and stepping up to become the leader you were born to be becomes the new normal.

And just imagine the positive effect it could have on the bottom line if no one felt the need to pretend any more.

Want to talk about how Imposter Syndrome could be hurting your business – and how to handle it? Get in touch and we can schedule a virtual coffee.

Is Collaborative Coaching The Slowest Route To Change For Business Leaders?

soul led leadership

“You have all the answers you need inside yourself,” is something I believe so strongly that it’s quoted on the early pages of one of my books. It’s the foundation of modern non-directive, collaborative coaching methods. But sometimes it’s also the slowest route to change.

When we want to make changes in life, it’s often driven by a realisation that there’s a skill set we don’t have.

Under the learning ladder model, this is called ‘conscious incompetence’ – we know what we don’t know. But real change happens at the deeper level with the subconscious habits we don’t even realise we’re running. This layer is about ‘unconscious incompetence’, made famous by Donald Rumsfeld’s quote about the Iraq war that we don’t know what we don’t know with his phrase: “There are known knowns… and there are unknown unknowns.”

When you use the collaborative coaching model, the coach never offers advice. They only ever ask questions to help the client to uncover their own answers. This can be a hugely powerful method because it helps the client to create solutions that are uniquely tailored to them. But there are times when this is the slowest way to create the changes they want. And when that client is in a leadership position, time is the one thing they don’t have.

And in a world where more and more managers are being trained to become collaborative coaches using only non-directive language, it’s risking slowing down business growth and staff development, as well as undermining the authority and respect for the leader, as they become reluctant to offer their opinions.

We’ve got out of balance.

 

Why have coaches become so scared to offer advice?

Many coaches pride themselves on never suggesting solutions to their clients, even if they are blindingly obvious to the coach. “Oh, I never offer advice! That’s not my role!” And for some of the coaching industry regulatory bodies, that’s an important distinction – a coach never offers advice and helps the client to find their own solutions.

Here’s the thing:

The client doesn’t actually care how they get the change they have contracted a coach to help them with.

They care about the results. And when they’re in a leadership role, they want those results as quickly and easily as possible.

Imagine learning to play the saxophone – an instrument with which I tortured my family for many years as a teenager. Imagine if your teacher were working as a collaborative coach.

You’d show up, lesson after lesson, and instead of being taught the techniques that allow your performance standards to improve in leaps and bounds, each time you got stuck they’d ask, “and what do you think you might do, to be able to play that section?” or “which beliefs about your performance do you need to change, to be able to play bar seven?” or “if you did know how to play that piece, what advice might you give yourself?”

We’d be pretty miffed.

And whilst there is a certain amount of self-belief needed to ace music exams, there’s also plenty of technique.

It’s the same with changing your life.

We might well have all the answers inside ourselves, but being forced to navel-gaze and find them, when the person opposite us already knows what they are and that the problem is causing us pain, seems cruel.

The work I do with leadership clients is at an ‘inside work’ level – dealing with the deeply subconscious root cause blocks, fears and identity-level issues that trigger the surface-level behaviours and mindset issues.

There is a time and a place for guiding a client to find their own route through the maze. The insights about how we ‘do’ the problems in our life can be invaluable. But there is also a time to offer well-chosen solutions and shortcuts that allow them to create breakthroughs in minutes, not months.

This is especially important for complex issues such as Imposter Syndrome.

This is why my clients and leadership teams get more than ‘coaching’.

They also get self-study video training for the most common challenges I have seen clients struggle with over the past eighteen years, whenever we identify the need for them. These are short courses they can go through in their own time to teach them techniques that are proven, highly effective and easy to learn on your own.

Then we use our face-to-face (or screen-to-screen) sessions to build on those breakthroughs and create new levels of insight. We’re maximising the value of the time we have together and I’m empowering my clients to learn the techniques they need, for creating change, at their own pace and at a time that suits them.

Technically this means I’m no longer ‘coaching’ – we have moved into ‘mentoring’ and ‘leadership development’. By combining mentoring with online self-study training for the essentials, it means we get to achieve in a few months what might otherwise have taken several years. And my clients get to learn techniques they can use for life, not just during our one-to-one sessions.

That’s why I don’t understand the modern obsession with non-directive coaching. I certainly wouldn’t want to work with someone who dictated what I had do and insisted I always took their advice. To grow a business, it’s essential that your team members at all levels feel heard and empowered. But I also wouldn’t want to feel stuck with someone who would never point out the blindingly obvious solution to me to a problem I didn’t even realise existed until I figured it out for myself – those unknown unknowns.

 

So, I’m curious:

Why do you think the coaching industry has become so paranoid about offering solutions?

And how do you think we might, as an industry, find more balance on this?

Let me know via the comments.

Clare

Clare Josa, Author of Dare to Dream Bigger & Ditching Imposter Syndrome

P.S. If this way of working resonates with you, get in touch and we’ll schedule a chat to find out whether I’m the right person for you to work with.

Imposter Syndrome: Meet Your Inner Critic – On Steroids

Imposter Syndrome

So many of us secretly wear our Imposter Syndrome like a ‘badge of honour’, making it part of who we are, not what we do, but what if the key to ditching Imposter Syndrome were about letting that go? How might things change for you if Imposter Syndrome were ‘just’ your Inner Critic on Steroids?

If you’ve hung out with me for a while, you’ll know I’m always talking about taming your Inner Critic. It’s that voice in your head that tells you all the bad stuff about who you are and what you can achieve.

It poops on your parade and squishes your most exciting dreams. It stopped you from asking out that dream date, way back when, and it’s the secret reason why we say no when our hearts are silently screaming yes.

But your Inner Critic has got your best interests at heart.

Yes, I’m ducking behind the screen right now to avoid the tantrums and rotten tomatoes that could be lobbed my way for saying that. The thing is that your Inner Critic’s biggest job is to protect you. I know it might not feel that way when our hearts are singing the song of something exciting and that voice in our heads is ranting about why it’s a crazy thing to do. But deep down, that mind-chatter is there because part of you is secretly scared and wants to keep you safe. And the actions we take depend on which voice wins.

One of your Inner Critic’s mantras is that safe is small and growth is scary.

It normally hangs out in the zone of your thoughts and actions, keeping check that you’re not taking risks it might not approve of or sticking your head above that parapet, where the wild things are.

When it comes to Imposter Syndrome, though, you’re no longer looking at thoughts and actions – it’s about who you believe you are and your existential fears. So your Inner Critic cranks things up to work with you to prevent an identity-level crisis.
Imposter Syndrome is basically your Inner Critic on steroids.

That’s why Imposter Syndrome wakes you up at 3am like no ‘simple’ worry ever could.

Your #innercriticis trying to keep you safe, even if its behaviour feels a bit crazy. But when #impostersyndrome strikes it's like it's on steroids. Find out why.Click To Tweet

What do I mean about Imposter Syndrome being an ‘identity-level’ issue?

Think for a moment about the kinds of words we use when we’re talking to ourselves about Imposter Syndrome:

Who am I to do that?
What if they find me out?
What if they realise I am a fraud?
What if they spot that I don’t belong here?

So much of that self-talk vocabulary is about who we are, not what we do.

And when we’re talking to ourselves like that, it’s about how we see ourselves, as a person, not our thoughts or feelings or actions.

 

The Imposter Syndrome Iceberg

When we look at improving our performance, most training works at the ‘actions’ level – looking at what we do and how. That’s why so many business courses don’t work – because they are focusing on the surface level symptoms (the effects), rather than the underlying triggers (the causes). In the world of Imposter Syndrome, that is about us turning down opportunities to shine or brushing off praise, or turning into workaholic perfectionists.

What we do is just the surface level symptom, because it is triggered by the thoughts we think.

We have conscious thoughts – the ones we pick and engage with – and subconscious thoughts, which are like autopilot programmes in our brains. And that’s useful, because it’s why we wake up able to remember how to walk each morning, without thinking about it afresh.

These thought patterns are habits, wired into your brain. In the world of Imposter Syndrome, they’re the conversation we’re having with ourselves when the ‘who am I, to…’ trigger strikes.

But those thought habits are still just at the ‘effect’ level – symptoms of what is going on, below the surface.

Our thoughts are governed by what we believe about the world – and what’s important to us. This tells your brain what to pay attention to – in filters in your brain – hence seeing red cars everywhere if you buy one – and it’s pretty useful that you can function in daily life, without having to be consciously aware of the blood pressure in the big toe of your left foot.

With Imposter Syndrome, those beliefs might be that we only achieved what we have done so far by fluke – or luck – or timing. It might be that we believe success has to be hard work and that if it felt easy to us, then it was nothing special and so anyone can do it. We might be running a belief that everyone else has got their stuff together, so we feel isolated as the only person who struggles with Imposter Syndrome. And these mean your good ol’ brain will obey your filtering requests and show you more evidence to support this.

But what is really driving the show with Imposter Syndrome is how you see yourself.

This kind of person gets a pay rise, but I’m that kind of person, so I won’t ask for one.

It’s the difference between someone getting feedback on their behaviour versus who they are – the difference between ‘that was a bad thing to do’ and ‘you are a bad person’.

And that’s the level that Imposter Syndrome works at.

I had to work really hard on that project, so I am not good enough. That’s Imposter Syndrome.

We’re not saying we don’t have the skills or training to succeed. We’re are judging who we ‘really’ are and finding ourselves lacking. It’s an identity-level hit.

Going back to that thing about your Inner Critic’s job being to keep you safe, the deeper down that iceberg a trigger goes, the harder your Inner Critic’s team will work to protect you. So if you’re hanging around at the surface of the iceberg, looking at which actions to take, that negative self-talk doesn’t have to work so hard to persuade you to play small.

But if your triggers start to go deeper, reaching below the conscious surface, then your self-talk has to work harder, because it’s not just overcoming a few pesky actions or positive thoughts, it’s heading into the beliefs and values territory – what’s important to you about life.

And if those triggers hit the identity-level realm, it has to get the klaxons out, set off more fireworks than bonfire night and do everything it can to stand in your way.

Imposter Syndrome raises the stakes and cranks up your Inner Critic’s dialogue because the ‘keeping you safe’ gets cranked up to become an existential crisis.

The great news is that, although Imposter Syndrome can feel like having your Inner Critic on steroids, there is plenty you can do to tame your inner dialogue, without white-washing or pretending or fighting it. Knowing how to calm it down sets you free to handle the deeper triggers of Imposter Syndrome, so you don’t have to keep going round that roller coaster.

I’m going to be covering plenty of how-to on this in my book Ditching Imposter Syndrome. But for now, I wonder if I could ask you a favour?

I’m finishing a 2,000 person research study into Imposter Syndrome, as part of writing the book. It’s completely anonymous. I wonder if you could spare a moment to fill it out for me?
Take The Survey

And I’d love to hear from you, via the comments:

How do you know when Imposter Syndrome is coming out to play? What are your early warning signs?

And how might it set you free to be more of who you really are, if Imposter Syndrome were ‘just’ your Inner Critic on steroids?

x Clare

What’s Your Book’s Sweet Spot? It’s The Near-Magical Formula For Success

planning

What is your book’s ‘sweet spot’? Hint: it’s the near-magic formula for your book’s success – and most authors miss this vital stage of the planning process. Find out what it is, what it isn’t, and how to find yours.

Most of the time, if someone wants to write a book that will attract new clients into their business, they think about a topic they know a lot about and start writing.

I have that t-shirt.

We’re super-fired up by the idea of writing – and we’re action-takers – so we just dive in and get pounding that keyboard. 80,000 words and buckets of sweat later, we’re ready to publish.

But this is one of the biggest reasons why so many books don’t produce the results we had been dreaming of:

  • they don’t sell, after the initial excitement
  • it’s hard to get people to review it
  • far from groaning under the weight of warm leads, your inbox is as silent as a sleeping sloth

Why does it go so wrong?

Because the author wrote the book that they wanted to write, rather than aiming for the sweet spot.

Your book sells to your current tribe, because they trust and respect you. But it doesn’t gain the traction to find itself the fresh audience you need to make a bigger difference, because people won’t be talking about it.

It’s hard to get people to review it, because it didn’t ‘do it for them – it’s not exciting enough for them to want to put their name to reviewing it. Or maybe they don’t want to admit they didn’t read it – or finish it. It spreads waves of awkwardness through your audience.

And because it didn’t create an emotional connection in your readers, they’re much less likely to take action and get in touch with you about their next steps – your most wanted response for the book. So your inbox stays as quiet as a bunch of nuns on a silent retreat.

 

What Is Your Book’s Sweet Spot?

It’s the overlap between four critical aspects of your book.

They create an alchemy-level result.

It’s about SO much more than ‘just’ picking a topic or title for your book.

Here are the four key elements to your author sweet spot:

 

#1: A Topic That Fits Your Expertise

I’m always banging on about ‘teach what you have embodied‘. Far too many people get inadvertently sucked into the wave of ‘what’s cool’ and start teaching, coaching and consulting on that.

But…

If you’re not living and breathing the transformation you teach, it hits your credibility hard. And nowhere is that more obvious than in 80,000 words in print.

If you’re constantly ranting on your Facebook timeline, then it’s hard to be seen as a leader in the field of stress-relief. If you’re only just starting your business journey, then you’ll struggle to be taken seriously as a business expert. If you’re a weight-loss nutrition coach, then your clients will expect you to look healthy. You don’t have to be perfect. But you do need to be practising what you preach. It’s called integrity.

 

There needs to be substance behind what you teach in your book.

But don’t let Imposter Syndrome get in the way:

It’s ok to be just a few steps ahead. But you can’t lead from behind in a book that’s positioning you as an expert. Similarly, you don’t have to be the world’s #1 authority, before you write your book!

Finding your book's 'sweet spot': #1 Pick a topic that fits your expertise - something you're living & breathing. There's nothing like 80,000 words in print to make it obvious, if you're not. #fromexperttoauthor Want the other 3 keys?Click To Tweet

 

#2: You Need The Ability To Communicate

Writing a book is easier than many people think, once you have found your voice.

If you’re a regular blogger or presenter or live streamer, then you’ll have practised getting your message across in a way that resonates with your audience. But if you’re new to writing anything longer than an email, you might need some practice.

Hint: that’s why I get you flexing your writing muscles each module in the From Expert To Author Mastermind.

And it’s really important to pick a subject you feel comfortable teaching – that you’re used to explaining, where you can pre-empt the questions that could come up.

But even if writing isn’t your thing, there are other options. You could speak your book and get it transcribed. You could work with a copywriter, to hone your skills. You could even work with a ghost writer.

Be realistic about your skills in this area and get the support you need to help your book to get your big message across.

Finding your book's 'sweet spot': #2 You need the ability to communicate. Pick a subject you're comfortable teaching, where you can pre-empt the readers' questions. #fromexperttoauthor Want the other 3 keys?Click To Tweet

 

#3: A Topic Your Dream Audience Is Hungry To Read About

I have lost count of how many times over the past 15+ years I have come up with an idea that I thought was brilliant, gone for it, and had near-zero response, only to have ideas I thought were mediocre go crazy.

Most experts write the book that they want to read, rather than the one their readers are hungry for. And, yes, these can be two totally different things.

You need to do your homework.

My time as Head of Market Research for a major international brand taught me that people rarely know what they need. Figuring that out is your job, as the expert. And they won’t buy that, anyway.

But they often have a good idea about what they want – or rather, what they don’t want.

There are ways to research this (most of them free), which can give you insights into exactly which book they will both pay for and spend the time to read. And – guess what – that’s the book that goes viral, that easily gets rave reviews, and which grows your business.

There’s very little point in spending up to 200 hours and thousands of pounds writing a book, unless your Dream Audience is hungry to read it.

Lined up for the From Expert To Author Mastermind? We deep-dive on this in modules one and two.

Finding your book's 'sweet spot': #3 Research & write about what your Dream Audience is hungry to read - don't waste 80,000 words on a best-guess assumption. #fromexperttoauthor Want the other 3 keys?Click To Tweet

 

#4: A Compelling Promise

Your compelling promise is the transformation or experience your book guides the reader through. It’s the big problem it solves. It’s the thing that means whatever was keeping your reader up at 3am melts away.

It’s the reason why they’ll fall in love with your work.

It gives you your laser focus for what needs to go in your book – and what would be distracting fluff. It gives you a single reader journey, rather than branching off into confusing dead ends.

And above all, it gives your reader something to get excited about. It kicks their backside into taking action. It gets them raving to their friends about how great your book is. And it gets them wanting to work with you, to help them on the next stage of their journey.

Finding your book's 'sweet spot': #4 A Compelling Promise -it's the big problem your book solves. It's the thing that means whatever was keeping your reader up at 3am melts away. #fromexperttoauthorWant the other 3 keys?Click To Tweet

 

This little bit of extra research and planning is what makes the difference between a book that’s ‘meh’ and one that’s a magical business-growing tool.

 

I’d Love To Hear From You:

  • What might your book’s sweet spot be?
  • I’m curious: which of these four elements are you feeling strongest in? And which might need some work?

You can let me know, via the comments.

If you found this useful, please do share this article with friends and colleagues who might be writing a book. You can find more articles that talk about your book’s sweet spot here.

x Clare

P.S. Remember: the From Expert To Author Mastermind guides you through this in the first three modules. See you there?

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