Self(ish) Confidence
Your confidence is your superpower… but what if you don’t have any? It can be hard to show up as your authentic self. When we go out, or even scrolling on the couch, it's easy to get trapped in the comparison game, making it even harder to be beautifully you. Self(ish) Confidence is about finding your confidence, shining your light and taking action toward your unconventional life. Every week, we'll chat through barriers that could hold you back. Follow along with me, Jess Clerke, as we learn to find our confidence together and begin to share our magic with the world.
Self(ish) Confidence
Embracing Authenticity, Imposter Syndrome + Self Discovery w/ Imposter Sisters, Colleen O'Dea and Alix Robinson
Ever wondered how authenticity can break barriers and transform lives? Join me, Jess, as I chat with the fabulous Alix and Colleen from the Impostor Sisters. We unwrap Colleen’s epic journey from stay-at-home mom to influential social media marketer and dive into her new chapter as a grandmother. Meanwhile, Alex takes us through her thrilling transition from a business degree to a vibrant career in marketing, where creativity reigns supreme. Together, we uncover how their friendship turned into a powerhouse collaboration, sparking the creation of their podcast and helping them face down imposter syndrome with unyielding support and laughter.
The episode rounds off with a heartwarming ode to sisterhood and self-discovery. We candidly discuss the challenges of navigating life transitions while remaining true to oneself, sharing valuable insights on managing social media’s smoke and mirrors. Whether it’s through sharing a laugh about public displays of affection or encouraging the "New Year, True You" mindset, we aim to leave you feeling inspired and confident in your unique path. Join us to embrace authenticity, enjoy a few laughs, and remember, as always, you are magic.
Connect with Colleen (@queenofcurtains), connect with Alix (@everydayimbranding) and Imposter Sisters Podcast (@impostersisters).
Thank you for listening to Self(ish) Confidence! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend or on your social media and tag me @jess.clerke so I can personally thank you for helping spread some confidence + love!
Check out my website at: www.jessclerke.com
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My Personal Account ---> @jess.clerke
The Podcast Account ---> @selfishconfidence
Welcome to Selfish Confidence, a place where we can connect and be real about how hard it is to be your damn self. My name is Jess and my goal is to help you build confidence and belief in yourself to live any life path you want, even if it's unconventional. It's time to flip off societal pressures and connect with women who've also felt on the outside by their life choices. We're here to encourage you to grab the mic and speak your truth. I know it can be scary, but we're in this together. Let's get started. Hello, hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Selfish Confidence Podcast. It's Jess here, and today is a really fun day because I have two of my favorite people hanging out with me here. I have my very good friend Alex and my and my very good friend Colleen from the Impostor Sisters. How y'all doing.
Speaker 2:We are great Feeling good so nice to be on your podcast. Jess, you are just the most vibrant, exciting, like you've got so much. We came out of that Speak Up conference and it was just amazing to see the power that you have, the power and the influence that you have over people. It's wonderful to watch. Oh, true.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, you guys are so sweet, thank you. We are honored to be here I was just like I just want to hang out with the imposter sister. So can you guys come on my podcast so we can hang out.
Speaker 2:Whatever we do is fake. Whatever we do is fake. It's. It's all impostery. This is not happening. It's all a lie. Yeah, I like it. All fraud. It's all smoke and mirrors. We're not even here yeah, the thing.
Speaker 1:That's always hard too when you have like multiple people on, especially like where we're not together in person. Unfortunately, we're like all at our individual homes where sometimes it's like, ah, like who's going to speak or what's going on. So I thought we could start things off with like an intro for each of you separately and then kind of talk about how you came together. Um so, colleen, do you want to go first share a little bit about you? Who are you, what you, what you do, what you at?
Speaker 2:oh, what can I tell you? So grew up in Halifax. Um, from Newfoundland, grew up in Halifax, you know. I've got a degree in information technology. I was a stay at home mom for a couple of years and then started a blog after my divorce and then started blogging about my life, which the blog took off and I ended up in influencer marketing as an influencer, which the blog took off and I ended up in influencer marketing as an influencer, and that went on for a number of years. I went back to school in graphic design and was an influencer and then the pandemic hit and the business blew up. Basically, Things did not go well for me during the pandemic and so, coming out of the pandemic, I decided to switch things up a little bit and get into social media marketing and it was stuff that I knew, stuff I knew how to do stuff I had some training on and I've had a lot of fun. I've got a couple of clients I work with and things are great. So that's a little bit about who I am.
Speaker 2:And you have like a new addition to new role Grand new, brand new grand baby and her name is Clementine Grace, and she's two and a half months old as of now when we're recording, and she's just magic. Yes.
Speaker 1:And I love the name. When I saw you post that as Clementine, I'm like that is such a beautiful, sweet little name.
Speaker 2:They're cute. Here's the thing, though.
Speaker 1:All I'm seeing everywhere I go are things with Clementines on it and I'm like I have to buy that. I have to buy that tea towel with a Clementine, I need to buy that you know a bracelet. Everything I'm seeing has Clementines on it right now and I don't know if that's normal, like if the baby was called mushroom.
Speaker 2:Am I gonna see mushrooms everywhere? Like suddenly you would also don't need your baby contender, it's on the list. That would be such a bad name, uh. But yeah, I'm seeing clementines everywhere, yeah oh, that's so sweet.
Speaker 1:It's almost like's, almost like a nice spirit guide sign too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, either that or clematines are really popular in 2024. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I love it. Well, congratulations on the new addition.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Alex you want to give us a little intro. Who are you? Where are you? Sure, I grew up in Yarmouth, if we're starting with hometowns. I came to Halifax to go to Dal. I did a business degree there Ironically, didn't take any marketing courses, took finance and accounting and decided pretty quickly I did not want to be an accountant or a financial analyst, did some IT training after I graduated and the bottom fell out of that industry just as I graduated.
Speaker 3:So I moved back to Yarmouth for a year and, um, there happened to be a government, municipal government program going on where we they were building websites for local businesses, um, as part of this funding grant and I was the most experienced. So I got to lead a team for the first time and it was also my first time kind of doing anything creative because I had really focused on math and the business part of math, math part of business for most of my education. So it was my first time doing any kind of graphic design or website development and I really enjoyed that part of it, really enjoyed the marketing part of it and had never really thought about that before. So that kind of shaped the rest of my career. I stayed there for years, a year long program. That was about as long as I could handle living back in my childhood house, came back to Halifax, got a job as a graphic designer.
Speaker 3:That company that went bankrupt and ended up working in the beauty industry in sort of an entry-level admin position and was able to move my way up into running the marketing department of that company for about 10 years until I had my son, and then worked in radio marketing for five years and had like a brief little jump into recruitment marketing, which pretty much told me I did not want to work for anyone else anymore. So then I went into my own business. That was about six and a half years ago, just focusing on marketing support generally. But once the pandemic hit, a lot of people were looking to be online in terms of social media. So my business really started to focus in that area at that time and it has been the major focus for most of it. And now I'm trying to do a little bit of a switch into more branding and personal branding. But that's yeah, that's it. I have a 13 year old and married. Yeah, that's kind of a nutshell.
Speaker 1:Well, you have a dog and a cat.
Speaker 3:Yes, colleen, don't you?
Speaker 1:have a cat too. Do we not include our pets in this dog?
Speaker 2:and a cat. Yes, colleen, don't you have a cat too? Do we not include our pets in this?
Speaker 1:Penny and three grown kids all with amazing partners.
Speaker 1:See, we forgot these extra additions on, but I love that and I love both of you so much and so grateful to be able to have you here and to be able to chat about this and to know that you're both in the world of marketing. It blows my mind, as it's been like ever changing, and seeing how it's growing and where you guys are both going has been really, really cool. How did you two come together and start the imposter sisters Like where did that even come from?
Speaker 2:How we got together was really interesting. I actually reached out to Alex. First of all, I was following her. I was following her as a somebody in marketing. I loved watching her stories, what she was doing and how she explained things. When the pandemic hit and we were all at home and everybody was getting into these Zoom calls, I sent Alex a message and said, hey, do you want to get together? And mostly because I wanted to know how she was dealing with graphic design clients, how she was, you know how this was all going to work, how this pandemic thing was going to work. So we ended up having a weekly Zoom call at the end of it.
Speaker 3:Accountability. We called each other accountability partners.
Speaker 2:Really Through this pandemic we were going to, you know, keep each other accountable. Pandemic we were going to, you know, keep each other accountable, and you know, and our friendship started as an online friendship. Uh, we both had a lot going on in our families and we very much bonded um over what we were dealing with and the pandemic and all this sort of stuff. We're now five years in besties. Think, think the world of each other. If you're in a room with us at all, you know we adore each other. But we we had, as the pandemic was ending, I was at that point when business wasn't going great for me and it was. It ended up that I started doing social media management, but which is what Alex was doing, or still doing. But at the time I said to Alex I think I have to get a job. I have to get a job. I have to get a job, job like a real job, not this you know, entrepreneur stuff that I was doing. And I said, but what can I do? And Alex like what do you mean? What can you do? I'm like what am I qualified to do? So she starts kind of making a list you can do this, this, and she's listing it all off. And then she goes oh my God, you've got imposter syndrome. And I was like what? Anyway, we were talking then about imposter syndrome.
Speaker 2:Anyway, the couple of days after, alex says, you know, and we've been trying to figure out a project to work on together, and Alex says, why don't we do a podcast on imposter syndrome? That would be really cool. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, that would be kind of interesting. Within the neck, within 24 hours, alex had the name, she had the url, she was like good to go. She was like so, yeah, that's kind of how I kind of took on a life of its own.
Speaker 3:We sort of thought about it and put it into action, which, if you, if you know both of us, isn't actually kind of our mo. So it's kind of interesting. We don't usually act that quick or um put things into action that quickly so clearly. It was meant to be, I guess, because we really did pull it all together pretty quickly. I mean, we had no idea what we were doing. But that's the beauty of having a podcast about imposter syndrome is that you don't have to do it right because you know what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Yes, don't you love that? Like, hey, I can mess this up and nobody, nobody can judge me, because that's what this is all about. It's just good content.
Speaker 2:It was just good content. Exactly, if we messed up at all, we'd be like whatever, we're imposters, we don't know what we're doing. We did. We recorded two episodes early on that we were on mute. We forgot to hit the record button and then we were like whatever we you know we had to rerecord them. We're like whatever, we're imposters, we don't know what we're doing. And we kept saying that for a while.
Speaker 2:We were probably well into season two still saying a while. We were probably well into season two still saying, yeah, we don't know. Yeah, when we got called out on it and they were like you do know what you're doing, you're doing a really good podcast. You got to stop saying you don't know what you're doing because you know what you're doing now. So so you get to the point when you're you can only fake it so long and then it's like, oh, wait a minute, now we're, we're actually making it, we're actually we're we're pulling this off, you know. So we had to. We had to kind of change how we were phrasing some things.
Speaker 3:But but now, when we mess up, we actually have to take accountability for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it sucks I like both your faces, like oh dang it but that's the thing it's like it's almost easier to stay behind that bubble, like that wall of protection that says, like I don't know what I'm doing, so don't judge me, like especially when you're putting yourself out on the internet like and podcasting can be really, really scary. But it's like you have this wall of protection of like I don't know what I'm doing, I'm not perfect. And then once you're a couple seasons in which I think you guys are, it's like well, what do you? When do you say I'm not a, I know what I'm doing, I'm not an imposter anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we got to the point, with the technical aspects and stuff like that, that it was like, okay, if we, if we want this to be what we want it to be, we need to hire some outside help. And we, we brought in bnv communication, bnv media because we, we weren't sounding great, we were still running it from the coffee shop. You could hear the fridges in the background, um, which we love doing it in the coffee shop.
Speaker 3:But it limited our capability to have multiple mics, which meant we couldn't have multiple guests, so we were just sort of running into a lot of obstacles by staying in that location. It was amazing and it really lent to the brand of what we were doing. But this year, having help with the editing and being able to make sure that we have sound control and quality and being able to have multiple guests, has just been a game changer in terms of bringing up some time for us as well.
Speaker 2:It is and it also allows us to really focus on the topic. Instead of worrying about all the technology part of it, the actual podcasting part of it, we can really just focus on interviewing people and talking about imposter syndrome and really putting the word out there.
Speaker 1:So right, and I even remember too, um, because I was on your podcast when it was in the coffee shop, which was great because there was cookies there, like what a win. So do you guys bring cookies to bnv now, or what?
Speaker 3:downfall.
Speaker 1:It's really unfortunate yeah, but anyways, point being we should.
Speaker 3:We should really talk to them about that.
Speaker 1:You should think about that, they should probably include cookies with that, with the recordings, but I was thinking about even taking the things off your plate, cause I know adding for both of you as business owners, having clients and having so many things going on behind closed doors the, the extra addition of a podcast can be a lot on an entrepreneur. Like, you're doing recordings, you're editing recordings, you're putting things out there, you're doing all the marketing for them, and now you have a team that does that for you, which is beautiful, like I love that so much. How has that freed up your capability to be able to expand the podcast even more now?
Speaker 3:I think from my perspective it's allowed me to engage more with the guests. Colleen, kind of, was always the interviewer and will continue to be the interviewer because that's really her strength she's very, very good at that. But I found that I was really preoccupied with, you know, making sure I have enough room on my phone, that we didn't run out of space, or making sure that the microphone was working or that we were all kind of talking into the microphone and, you know, the lighting and all the other things. So I didn't realize until I wasn't doing it how preoccupied I was with those things. And then this season I'm just able to be a lot more present. I am, I think I'm engaging a little bit more in the conversation and that's been really, really nice. And then not having the added time of then having to edit and piece it all together, that's been huge from my perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how are you like in recording in a studio now, colleen, does it feel?
Speaker 2:like more legit I love it. I I really enjoy well, first of all, it's got this amazing view of the halifax harbor, so you're you know, it's, it's lovely, I like it, I, you know, I, I'm with you.
Speaker 2:I miss the cookies and the tea. The mellow mug is just they. They were great. So I'm missing the cookies and the tea, but I kind of like, um, that it's a little bit more professional. Um, yeah, it feels good and I I was always a little bit so.
Speaker 2:I love this podcast, I love imposter sisters and I was always a little bit worried that it was too much on Alex, that at some point Alex was gonna say, say I can't do this anymore. I'm like cause she's overworked and and now you know to have to do all the editing cause I didn't edit. I tried editing once. I was ridiculous at it, I was like useless at it, and so I I knew there was a lot of technical burden on Alex and I was worried. I kept on. I was worried all the time that she was going to go enough's enough.
Speaker 2:We got to stop this podcast and I think that would really have broken my heart if we stopped it. But I also didn't want to say to her if we stop this, it's going to break my heart, because it was like it was a lot of work for her, so it was a big step to bring in a communications company, because it it costs money and we're really not making a whole lot of money yet off the podcast. So but in that in time, I think we're looking for more speaker engagement, or speaker what do you call that? Speaking opportunities yeah, speaking opportunities and and I think with some ads and stuff in time it might make a little bit more money.
Speaker 3:But yeah, we're investing in it, you know, and now I'm doing very little and Colleen's doing, like, all the coordinating and all the you know most of the social media. So now I actually have to, you know, step up my game a little bit. But I never would have laughed for the record. But that's why I said I think we need to look at outsourcing a little bit, because I don't want to leave it. I think there's a lot of potential there. I love the values of the podcast, which is really about empowering women and talking about confidence issues and really normalizing these feelings of self-doubt that so many people feel, and often in isolation or they feel like they're in isolation. So I really love that part of it and I would never want to step away from that at all. So just finding different ways to take some of that off and help us grow, I think was it feels like a really good move for this season.
Speaker 1:And how have you found having a part like a project like this together as friends, starting as friends first and then going into essentially like a business together as this project? How has that affected or helped your relationship? We?
Speaker 2:we feed really well off one another. We are better together. Um, I can't like, if a if either one of us, I think, said that they didn't want to, I don't think either one of us would podcast. I can't imagine doing a podcast on my own. We feed very, very well off each other. We enjoy each other's company and I don't know. I just think I remember when we first started, alex, and I thought, oh, I hope this works, but if it doesn't work, I hope it doesn't hurt our friendship in any way. You know, and I feel like anything that comes up, like if Alex would say you know, this is too much. That's like anything that we would bring to the forefront. We were very, very quick. Any negative thing, we were very, very quick to deal with it. And it's like like, okay, what do you want? What do you want to do?
Speaker 3:okay, we'll do that like it wasn't we have a really good communication um style, I think, for us. You know, we don't. We're not nervous to voice how we feel about things. There's not not going to be any judgment on the other side, there's not going to be any repercussion, um, and often times if one of us brings something up, the other person has already sensed it anyway. So it's not like we're ever talking to each other about anything that's shocking. I mean, colleen knows me so well now that she, you know, invites me to an event and gives me a foolproof escape without making me feel guilty, or, and because she sees who I am as a person and understands that and I, and I hope she feels that, but I think that just makes it easier because we kind of know each other so well now we can anticipate the reactions to things.
Speaker 1:And there's no. You know, sometimes I would show up on a Sunday night, tired and cranky as hell and just like not in it, and she just meet me where I'm at and you know, by the time we were done, everything was good and you know it would be fine. But you don't always have that. You kind of really have to understand each other and know, be able to read each other really well, and I think we do that quite well. Oh yeah, that's so exciting.
Speaker 1:It makes me want to put your like human design charts side by side. And then I go like ooh, like what's your compatibility? I'm so curious. But I think it's so beautiful that you could build something from your friendship that's helping so many women create friendships too, and also to be able to connect, because I went to one of your live podcasting events at the Mellow Mug and was able to meet so many really incredible people who I now call friends at that, from being in your rooms. And I'm just so curious too on as you've been building this and as you've been building your own businesses separately, like where do you guys want to go for 2025, whether that's together or like separate?
Speaker 2:well, you know the podcast 100 together. Um I although we've had a lot of people tell us they want more of us. So, as much as we love having guests on, I think you're probably going to see a few more posts or a few more podcasts of just Alex and I ourselves without a guest, because, again, we play off each other very well. So I think with the podcast, I think we just plan on continuing to grow and whatnot. Me personally, I'm hard into social media strategy, as Alex is. I wouldn't say you're stepping back from it, alex.
Speaker 3:I'm not exiting it, but I'm shifting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're shifting. You're doing a lot of personal branding, that sort of thing. It's very interesting because we don't work together. We have our separate businesses but we very much know a lot about what's. We support each other in those businesses as colleagues to be able to bounce some ideas off each other, Like if I'm curious about how she would handle something with one of my clients, I have no problem like asking Alex and getting her advice and 100% knowing that it's confidential. And so we meet every week for coffee and some of that meeting is bouncing ideas off about our clients and and I don't think our clients realizing realize that they're really benefiting when they hire one of us, that there's another person that's, that's in there, you know, supporting that person. You know it's very interesting because we both work alone. Yeah, it's very much.
Speaker 3:You know community over competition kind of thing. You know we have very different styles and very different approaches to strategy, but often have a lot of overlapping values and visions and ideas about social media and the impact and how to use it in a way that is effective, but also really are trying to build up our clients and help them feel confident and empowered in their businesses as well, too, which is sort of the. It's a logical off shift.
Speaker 3:For me, branding is where I started. It's what I, you know, built most of my creative career on. It's what I did throughout most of my corporate life. So going back to it in this fashion feels really, really aligned, because it's it's very working one-on-one with people to help them feel confident enough to be themselves in their business, which is something that I've been working on personally for a long time too and has made a huge difference for me. So excited to be able to kind of take the best of both of those worlds that I've been working in and make it into something else. But then it also really ties really nicely into the imposter syndrome, because it's all about confidence and overcoming those hurdles.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I love that. And I love that you say like that community and collaboration piece over competition. Because I think sometimes in this field too podcasters and marketing and social media we can get caught up in that like oh well, they're doing this, or like I don't want to copy them, or all of that energy right where community and collaboration is like the best approach to come from this. And you're right, colleen, and saying like your clients don't understand the benefit that they have getting two marketing masterminds essentially for the price of one. Like you guys should probably raise your prices, by the way. Um, but like think about that from that perspective, like how cool it is that you can work together and there not be that energy of competition from sisters, like what a beautiful gift that is. And same thing goes with the podcast, with your businesses and all of those pieces. If someone listening right now is like well, I have this idea or I want to start a podcast, or I have a project on my heart, but I'm absolutely terrified, what advice would you tell them?
Speaker 3:Do it. I mean, it's, it's cliched, and everybody says, you know, just do it before you're ready. Um, but there is no ready. You know that's the reality of it and, yeah, it's definitely terrifying. It's always terrifying when you're growing. Though, no matter what you do that, you know there's that uh, feeling of discomfort. I'm living in it right now, trying to make this shift, and I have to keep coming back to myself and being like this is okay, feeling like this is okay, like it's not. You know, I tend to catastrophize or awfulize or whatever you want to call it. So, beginning really much better at stepping back and being like, okay, you're just in this flux right now and that's okay. And it feels uncomfortable, yes, but you can't get to the other side of it unless you live in that flux for a little bit. So, yeah, I think it is true. You just need to kind of go for it, because how are you ever going to know if you don't try?
Speaker 2:And I think just about every one of our guests at some point or another has said if they are feeling uncomfortable, then they're doing the right thing. Like, if you're feeling challenged, if you're feeling a little like this is a little uncomfortable, this is a little uneasy I'm not like I'm a little nervous about this then maybe that's the way you need to move.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because we're so prone to backing off as soon as we feel that discomfort, so it feels unnatural to push through it, but it is really the only way.
Speaker 2:It's hard to lean in and, like I know Alex has got this big shift going on right now and I, like I said to you the other day I said, alex, in the new year, do we need to sit down with a big sheet of paper and just brainstorm it all out? Like let's just push it all out, because sometimes, like you've got it, you've got the idea, you've got the plan, but making the next step is this big, mental, difficult jump. Yeah, even though it's all there, all the pieces are there, so it's like let's sit down. So I think, sometimes, having that we called it accountability partner that turned into best friend, but whether it's your husband, your sister, your friend, like find that person that's going to push you, give you the push Just that much that you need, you know, just not over the edge.
Speaker 3:But also like and see you where you are and validate those feelings too, and I think that's something that we really do for each other and that I certainly appreciate is being able to show up and just like, throw up whatever is going on in my life and not be like, oh well, maybe you should have done this, or you know why are you constantly talking about that? There's none of that. It's just like exactly seeing you where you're at and saying like, yeah, I get it and you're completely right for feeling that way. And then you know, maybe maybe we think about it this way or or just sit there in it, and that, to me, is huge, cause you always have people that are trying to fix you, fix you, fix you, fix you.
Speaker 3:And I really love just being seen and validated, and I think we need that. We need somebody in our life that can do that. So, yeah, colleen is right, find yourself a person that can do that for you, because when you're going through these things, you're going to have all that huge emotions running at you and it's going to you're going to want to run the other direction. So having that person there that can kind of bring you back down to reality, or see you where you're at, is so helpful to stay on course.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you're listening to this and you don't have that person, you're like I can't even think of a person in my life who could do this for me. Like my partner doesn't get it, my family doesn't get it, I'm the weirdo, which I think we can all relate to. Feeling like being the weirdo. Do what Colleen did and find someone online and send them a DM and be like hey, I'm watching you, you want?
Speaker 3:to hang out, and then you know stalkerish, hey, yeah, you did say you're following, like I couldn't you say that you reached out to me? But I could remember it easily, just as easily as me reaching out to you. I'm sure that you reached out but I, like, I didn't feel like it was stalkery.
Speaker 2:I felt like we were mutually stalking. Did you get really excited to go? That's that influencer, Colleen, reaching out to me. I did.
Speaker 3:I was like I was intimidated because you were like a known name and I was just like nobody, you know, just anyway. So yes, it was intimidating at first, but I do think that support part is a huge, huge part of it. And yeah, yeah, if you don't have that person, then you know, reach out to one of us, we'll connect you. We've got like an imposter sisterhood now, a whole imposter roster not to claim your terminology no, you're good, I love it.
Speaker 2:It's funny because we've been using sisterhood as well and then when I got heavy into following you and stuff, I'm like, oh, did we steal that? Like, did we?
Speaker 1:I feel like that's like a great word right now, though, for the collective of women who are coming together because I have other friends who have sisterhoods too Like I just think it's this beautiful empowerment piece of like we are like we're sisters, we're all in this together. There's no like again collaboration, community over everything. And like you are the imposter sisters, like I want to be in your sisterhood just as much. I bet you want to be in the selfish sisterhood. Like we're coming all together Right, like that's what this is all about.
Speaker 1:And I, I love it. And I'm sitting over here like hormonal and crying because I just see the beauty in the two of you's relationship and like the support that you have and the love that you have for each other. Like Alex supporting you, colleen, as you were stepping into a season of deciding what to do next in your business, and now you supporting Alex for this transition into personal branding, I'm just like over here they're just like, wow, this is so beautiful. Like who's going to make the movie on this. Like this is so nice.
Speaker 3:Sorry, we are currently looking for someone to write the screenplay. Yeah For the Hallmark movie of friendship.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:It's true though, and I I laugh, but I I don't take it for granted, because I I I struggle with other people have my entire life. So it is really nice to to have a friendship that I feel so safe in, and I know that that's that's hard for a lot of people, especially introverts, to find that kind of thing, so I certainly don't take it for granted.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, I don't take it for granted either and I think I've had a lot of women in my life that have, you know, come in and out of various chapters in my life, and I don't take any of them for granted. I think they were there for the reason, the season, the chapter, the whatever. At the time I had some friends over last night actually, and from various aspects of my life, and it felt it was nice to see all those women together as, yeah, it just I feel like there's a lot of. You can surround yourself with a lot of good women. There's good women out there that are looking for other good women to help and support and love and guide. There's also a lot of women out there that you know prefer the competition or you know, like that aspect of things. And so figure out, figure out, yeah, figure out who your people are.
Speaker 2:You know, I had a friend say to me if you come home at the end of spending time with somebody and you come home feeling worse than when you went out, then maybe you weren't with the right person at that time in your life. You know, and I've had some of those moments through the years and I've never come home from a time with Alex feeling, oh shit, I shouldn't have gone out. I feel like I always come home feeling oh God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always come home feeling like I'm a better person for I've spent time, having spent time with her, so I find those people yeah, yeah, it's. It's precious that that's, that's. Those are precious relationships, and those are precious relationships in family and in in in your spouse like your. You know your spouse should be that supportive as well. Like you need good, you need to surround yourself with good people. Life is is hard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think just pushing yourself, you know, so that things are fresh and new, given if depending on how you work, but if you're trying something new or you're looking to do something new, chances are you need a change. So just pushing yourself towards that and trusting, trusting your gut. I guess it's all cliches. I'm just spewing cliches right now.
Speaker 2:But Alex is either doing cliches in her business or trying to do things with words. What do you call that, Alex, when you take all the letters of the word and turn it into?
Speaker 1:Oh, an acronym, Alex is all about acronyms.
Speaker 2:She's all about cliches. She's all about putting a name on something Like what are we going to call this? I don't know. It's the branding, it's the branding brain in her that, yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 1:I think it's cool too, like for us to be three introverts hanging out here on this podcast together, each in our own homes, like we're not together in person, but I can feel the energy and like the excitement from just hanging out with you guys and having this time to spend with you. I'm just like, yes, like these are the people. Like these are the people you want to get around. You want to get around the people who light you up and love on you and support you through your dreams. So if you could have like one piece of advice for anyone listening, it doesn't have to be podcast related, project related anything, just it's new year. We got some thoughts Like what's the life lesson you want to instill on someone listening today? I know it's a big life lesson.
Speaker 1:Just anything, Just one thing that if you're like you feel it right now, you know what you have to say say the person listening right now needs to hear it see, alex knows that's something good.
Speaker 3:Well, I've come across something in some of the stuff that I've been working on um for clients about new year content and I came across this new year true you because I really dislike the new year, new you bullshit. Because there's so much pressure around that and so much, like you know, patriarchal shit attached to that. I don't know, can I swear on your podcast?
Speaker 1:sorry, you can do anything you want baby.
Speaker 3:Uh, I think that there's so much pressure for us when a new year comes around and we need to make all these changes and we need to fix who we were or whatever, or like think about all the horrible things about us or what we haven't haven't done, and I really like this notion of the true you and really coming into who you are as a person. So my biggest piece of advice is to get clear on that and and put some things in place so that you can really live that way. Because what I have found in my own personal experience with struggles with self confidence is that when I'm not living that way, I'm not living to what's important to me. That is when the biggest drops in confidence happen for me, when I'm trying to be somebody else or when I'm trying to project something that I think maybe other people want rather than what I really want. So I think just getting really clear on what's most important to you and the kind of person you want to be and putting things in place that enable you to live that way is going to really close that gap.
Speaker 3:It's not, it's not an overnight thing, like it's not an easy practice. It definitely takes time and it takes work and you have to really go through some steps to get there. But once you do and once you I call it living within your values. I think lots of other people talk that way too. But if you're living to those values and you have all the things in place to enable you to do that like boundaries and support systems and understanding what your motivators are and your non-negotiables it just becomes so much easier to feel like yourself.
Speaker 2:I like that, I like that new year, true you.
Speaker 2:That's interesting because, everything to me is always like new year. New year like lose weight or do this or go to the gym or all that you know. Be a new person. I don't want to be a whole new person. I rather like who I am. There's bits of me that need a little work and also I need to put. We need to be authentic. So I like what you're saying. So I would like to say ditto, and you know that. Have you ever seen that house that has all the lights on for Christmas?
Speaker 1:It's all lit up and beautiful.
Speaker 2:And then the other house, the next door neighbors just go ditto.
Speaker 3:I'm going with an arrow. Yeah, with the arrow.
Speaker 2:So she just lit up the screen with all the things that we should do and I'm going to say ditto.
Speaker 1:I love it. Great advice for both of you.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think just you know you are, you live that way, you know what it is, you know. That, I think was part of your journey too, is just really getting clear on who you are and and and building your life around that, and I think it's it's hard. I think it's hard for us when we're growing up and we're trying to fit into all these different molds and we're trying to figure who we are and we have, like you know, outdated relationships that we don't realize maybe aren't serving us anymore, and we're building our careers, we're building our families, we're building our homes, and then, all of a sudden, we wake up one day and we're like, wait, what about us? Who are we?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think my advice for all of this is to get clear on who you were early. Yeah, if you can, if you can. So that was not a practice I ever did. I never looked at who I was, what I wanted, what I wanted in life. I had business goals, but never personal business like who, who am I? Who am I in all of this?
Speaker 2:Because, you know, through being a wife and through having children and all that stuff, I lost who I was. I didn't know it like. I completely lost who I was, and and it's only since I've really been an empty nester at I guess, my last child moved out at 50, when I was 51, maybe it was only at that point that all of a sudden I was like, oh shit, who am, who am I Like? What do I want? You know, and that was during the pandemic. So it's only really now a little bit that I'm diving into some of those ideas of who am I, and so I recommend, I guess, that maybe people take a look at that a little bit earlier if they can. But also, it's never too late.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm 56 now, it's not too late to decide what I want and how I want to live my life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the other thing I was going to say about that, too, is getting really clear on your own definitions of success, because when you start businesses and you start projects, there's all these other things that come to mind like, oh, I need to be making this amount of money, or I need to sound like this, or I need to, you know, have this many followers on social media, I need to this or this and that, and a lot of times those measures of success aren't yours.
Speaker 3:You can reach all those milestones and be miserable, you can be burnt out, you can be overwhelmed, you can like be continuously reaching for more, and if you don't kind of take a like a little bit of a dive back and understand what exactly it is that you want to make you happy, is it flexibility in your schedule? Is it freedom? Is it time to spend with family? Is it reaching a financial goal so that you can then do this and this and this? Because financial goals aren't bad, but sometimes we have financial goals that aren't really our financial goals and we strive for them at the expense of our mental health and our well-being. So I think that's really important too is just understanding what it is you want as an outcome from the project before you even get started, so that you can make sure that that's what you're striving for.
Speaker 2:Right, it's tough on social media because there's so much comparison, right? So we look at what somebody else is doing and we're like, okay, she's doing it right, obviously. So I want to be her, I want to follow what she's doing. I'm going to do exactly what. You know what that person's doing, but that person might have different wants and dreams and goals than you do, and unless you're clear on what it is you want, you're just, you're following something that you don't even know what you're following because you you know.
Speaker 3:Instead, you have to kind of set your intentions and decide who you want to be and go for it, and that's where a lot of imposter syndrome comes in too is in those spaces where we're comparing instead of trying to figure out what's important to us. So we see it a lot, and with our guests and in ourselves as well. I mean, obviously, if you work in a creative industry, it's really hard to not to, you know, thought up against that a lot. But yeah, it's just kind of important to try to take a step back from that when you can and reframe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I feel like I've been doing that a lot this year, like now going through pregnancy, which is something a year ago I never anticipated I would do getting clear on who I am, because in these life transitions we become new versions of ourselves. It just is like the pandemic, anything right, and I've been taking a lot of time like almost stepping back, to be like, okay, who am I and what do I want going forward and I'm sure you both are doing that too as transitions in your business as well, and it's just an interesting season. I know you've both gone through this before.
Speaker 1:So it's an interesting season of like, who am I, what do I want, and then I'm sure it'll change again when the baby actually gets here. But it's been a journey of figuring that out. So I'm really grateful to have both of you in my corner to support me through this transition and just to be that positive guide of like hey, colleen and Alex did it and they're killing it over here. Even if they're imposters, they're killing it and I'm just so grateful to have that in my corner.
Speaker 3:I can't wait to see you.
Speaker 2:As a mom, I can't either. But it's okay to change. It's okay to come up with this, with your rules and your guiding and you know, figuring out who you are, and that doesn't mean that's who you were forever right. You're allowed to change, you're allowed to revisit, you're allowed to grow again and change again and step back again and all this sort of stuff. And I think a lot of times people are like okay, I put in the work, I went to a therapist, I got myself figured out, now I'm good to go. But that doesn't mean that's that, it's, it's going to be perfect from that point forward, where we're evolving human beings, we constantly change and life throws stuff at us and we need to every now and then, re evaluate again right, yeah, and I think that comes down to the relationships around us as well, because I think those sometimes we forget and get, get, we don't realign our relationships and that can be really tricky as well.
Speaker 3:so, just yeah, I think, being open to, uh, evolving.
Speaker 1:I love it. Where can our listeners connect with you? Where can they find the imposter sisters podcast like? Where can they get all of your magic?
Speaker 3:we're on all the major podcast, uh channels, platforms, apple, spotify, um. You can also find us on our website, where we have all the episodes um as well.
Speaker 2:It's imposter, sisterscom and then we're on. Yeah, go ahead, you know, on instagram at imposter sisters, and also you can find us at the mellow mug every thursday morning at around 10 o'clock. Great, that's true 11 o'clock is when I get there. We have a standing date for 10, 15.
Speaker 3:I've never made it on time.
Speaker 2:Never I arrive at 10 because I need to get there, find my table, have my back to the wall. I need all my space. I need to be there first, and then Alex starts sending messages. I haven't left yet, surprise, she gets there. Eventually. I just do some work until she gets there.
Speaker 3:She doesn't expect me on time at this point at least, so it's like it's not great, but it's an understanding that we have. I just can't get my shit together.
Speaker 2:I count on it. Actually, if you were to be there on time, it would mess me up. I, yeah, I, I. I put in your I know when you're coming I love that.
Speaker 3:You can also find us individually on instagram as well. I'm um every day.
Speaker 1:I'm branding and I'm queen of curtains perfect, and I'll put all that in the show notes too, because I know that was a lot of handles, and you're listening to this while you're driving and you're just like I can't stop and do this, but don't worry it will be in the show notes for you to be able to check out their podcast and check out their magic that they have. That has just been so beautiful and maybe you just want a little bit of like their friendship magic in your life too.
Speaker 3:Like we're kind of funny. We've been told.
Speaker 1:You're kind of funny, you're kind of funny.
Speaker 3:I love it.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for spending time with me today recording this podcast episode and being here. I'm just so grateful for both of you.
Speaker 3:You know the feeling is big time mutual. We are so happy to have you in our lives.
Speaker 2:You have brought so much joy to both of us. I think it's we are huge, huge Jess fans. Big Jess fans, but also big fans of, like the people that surround themselves in your life. Like it's we're big Jess fans, yeah, yeah, that's a good way to put it ditto.
Speaker 1:I'm I'm big Colleen and Alex fans, big, big, big fans. Over here it's a love fest. Oh, I love this if people listening to this are either vomiting or really enjoying the love over here today, and I would probably be one that would vomit.
Speaker 3:So if you're vomiting, I I'm with you. Like I get it.
Speaker 1:It's it's cringy, but I love it I did ask alex earlier because she just went on a trip with her partner. I'm like, were you guys holding hands, kissing? She's like ew, just gross. I'm like you didn't even hold hands once. Well, maybe once.
Speaker 3:I was like okay yeah, I can't picture you holding hands. I'm not like a huge public affection person. I'm not really a huge affection person. Real treat to be married to yeah.
Speaker 1:He's happy, don't worry, he's good.
Speaker 3:I'm happy that's right.
Speaker 1:Awesome.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much my friends, thanks for having us, thank you.
Speaker 1:What's up, sis? I am so glad we could hang out today. If you love this episode, send it to a friend or share it on your social media and tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me sprinkle some confidence in the world. And don't forget you are magic. Let's show the world your shine.
