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Unstuck With Bill - Clearing negative self-beliefs part 1 · Unstuck with Bill

• speaker-0: Mm-hmm. speaker-1: I come from a a blue collar, you know, dysfunctional family where ⁓ a lot of times when you're the center of attention, it wasn't necessarily positive. and ⁓ I think there's two ways that people choose to be safe in those situations. They either hide a little bit or they try and get very big, you know. So if you if everybody sees me all the time, then I'm safe. Or, you know, for me, it's like if nobody sees me, then I'm safe. speaker-0: I'm Bill Ferguson III. For more than twenty years as a mediator, I've helped people move through conflict, uncertainty, and change. This is Unstuck with Bill, the podcast where we don't just talk about problems, we give you the techniques to get unstuck. Our guest Tim is from Los Angeles, and he has achieved career success, yet still struggles with feeling like he doesn't belong. Today we're exploring how to overcome imposter syndrome and own your place at the table. Welcome, Tim. speaker-1: Hello? speaker-0: I've given our audience a little bit of information on your impending retirement and how you're starting to move into the next chapter of your life, which is allowing the creative part of you that never had a chance to expand, expand. Could you briefly share a little bit about some of the current projects you're working on? speaker-1: Yeah, I'd love to. ⁓ first of all, thanks for having me. ⁓ that's very exciting. so I have a screenplay that I wrote that ⁓ currently has a director and some producers attached whom we're trying to go out to talent. ⁓ and I'm also working on a book ⁓ based on a previous screenplay that almost got made, but ⁓ then a similar project came out that kind of killed it. But I really still believe in it and think that it's ⁓ different and unique enough that it should ⁓ should find its audience. speaker-0: So it sounds like creatively you're off to a pretty good start. You've got some projects and you got momentum, right? I hope so. Yeah. So how do you feel about actually being seen for the work? Like, you know, you've got a book you want to get out and you've got a s a screenplay that has interests, but as a writer, how does that feel for you personally? speaker-1: ⁓ it feels ⁓ good to be acknowledged. ⁓ I always love it when people read my work and they respond to it. ⁓ that really is my favorite part, really, because I'm trying to communicate something. ⁓ and when it lands, ⁓ I love that. ⁓ I don't ⁓ love as much the trying to attract ⁓ money and ⁓ that is the part that ⁓ trips me up. I do it and I try to understand it and I try to ⁓ noodle forward on ⁓ the sort of more career based aspects of it. But it's ⁓ it makes me nervous. Yeah, it makes me nervous and and it it brings up a maybe a little bit of imposter syndrome. speaker-0: So does the acknowledgement you're getting and ⁓ you know you say you you're you like the fact of people acknowledging your work and but also you're you having to use you as much as the work as a selling feature in order to get money attached and you know to move forward. ⁓ what is what does that bring back to you? 'Cause we had talked about how, you know, you your creative flow is going, but then you kinda get stuck a little bit in the area of when people ⁓ start praising your work or praising the quality of things you're doing. You're telling me about a nonprofit gig that you're helping with and, you know, that's about to start and you're about to get in front of all these people. so maybe we can touch a little bit on on that aspect of what you were saying yesterday about where, you know, y you you're recognizing your work, but then sometimes you you you have a hard problem You said you had a hard problem taking it in. So I'd like to kinda hear from your own perspective where that kinda comes from and things like that. speaker-1: Sure. I mean, I come from a a blue-collar, you know, dysfunctional family where a lot of times when you were the center of attention, it wasn't necessarily positive. and ⁓ I think there's two ways that people choose to be safe in those situations. They either hide a little bit or they try and get very big, you know. So if you if everybody sees me all the time that I'm safe or You know, for me, it's like if nobody sees me, then I'm safe. ⁓ you know, neither of those are true. but it is one of the places where I get stuck because if I hear ⁓ somebody, you know, like a a friend of mine who who loves my work say that I'm a great writer, I'll be I'll I have to really fight the urge to sort of put myself down a little bit or or take take myself down a few pegs, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't get too excited. You know, I've never had anything published and no one's ever made anything. Like I will sometimes say that or sometimes want to say that and have to really tamp it down. And ⁓ and it's something that gets in the way, you know, it I I don't need it. and that's one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you. speaker-0: Was there a period when you were growing up where you tried to take pride in something and it was not well received or or not received the way you you know you would expect from and then we'll get into who. speaker-1: There's probably more than one. The first one that came to mind when you asked that question is when I was God, I I had to be mm five or something. ⁓ I made I made up a song and I sang it for my mom and she was like, Wow, that was so great. Who who where'd you hear that? And I was like, I didn't hear it. I I made it up and she's like, No, you didn't. Don't lie to me. And I speaker-0: Who speaker-1: Yeah, I feel that ⁓ you know, that was kind of a core wound on my creativity. ⁓ and in other places she was very supportive. Like she thought I could draw, like and she would be like, You should take art classes. But I I don't know what happened on that day or what was her mood was about or what what ⁓ but that just that kind of lodged in there a bit, I believe. speaker-0: Yeah, no, I that would make sense. But by your father or or other people around you at that time. speaker-1: Well, I think to some degree, ⁓ so you know, and this I don't think was unusual for someone who grew up in the seventies and eighties, but like our family life revolved around TV a lot. So ⁓ I I think a part of me was like if I could get in that box, maybe they would they would see me, you know. ⁓ but ⁓ you know, in some way, in some way. but ⁓ yeah, I think I think I wanted my ⁓ my brother was very good at sports, my older brother, and that's something that although he and my my dad ⁓ fought a lot, that was kind of the one thing like my dad would show up for all of his ⁓ his games and he was very ⁓ proud of his athletic abilities. And ⁓ I you know, I wanted something like that, ⁓ because I was not good at sports. speaker-0: Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. You had a different you had a you had different interests and different obviously talents that just didn't get recognized, it sounded like. So now you know, I know you had a career in government, and you still have a career in government, and that's where you're retiring from. You're moving into a more creative aspect of your life. Do you think those experiences kind of affected the path you took versus the path maybe you might have taken? Like I think what they were saying to you as a kid and a teenager and whatever? speaker-1: It's hard to say. I'm I'm really the only one who left. ⁓ you know, so I ⁓ my both my brother and sister stayed in in Cambridge, Massachusetts where I grew up. ⁓ unfortunately both both my brother and sister have passed already and my dad. ⁓ so it's just me and my mom and my nephews at this point. ⁓ but I was the one who came out to LA and ⁓ you know, in order to do that, because I don't come from a rich family you know, I needed to work. and I f ⁓ fell into computer programming when nobody was really doing it. and it was as close to something creative that felt safe that I could find. speaker-0: Right. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. So what I'm hearing from you, even when you're talking about what you're doing now and been doing since you you know, s your career, ⁓ as well as your creative endeavors that are that have started ⁓ and you're gonna you know continue after you retire, it sounds like you're not describing that you your lack of any confidence in your actual work. But what I'm hearing is that it's more about voices Sounds like from the past that keeps showing up with, you know, how how you feel seen about that work, right? like you said, your friend saying something and I'm sh I'm sure they genuinely honestly mean it. But for you it's it's not be it's not it's not landing that way, right? ⁓ speaker-1: It it does not no. Yeah. Takes work to to allow it in. you know, yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. Do you think, from what you know the entertainment business having lived in LA, and from what you are planning to do next, that there is a part of being a creative person, regardless of what which role you have, that requires a little bit of self promotion and self assurance and self confidence. and that when somebody says something like that, you're like, ⁓ not that you have to be ⁓ cocky about it, but that you recognize when somebody says that you're good at something. ⁓ speaker-1: Yes. Yes. ⁓ for a absolutely I think that one of the things that I always find myself a little ⁓ jealous of is people who are able to self promote. And ⁓ you know, especially if they're if they're talented. I don't mean to say this I don't mean to sound speaker-0: I don't know. There are people that are very talented at self promoting and that's all they're good at, right? But we're talking about creative people that are talented and there's almost like two categories. The ones that can self promote, which I think helps them get their work out there and helps them get funding, right? We're looking for funding. ⁓ and but it sounds like you're concerned you're a little more on the other column, which is hey, am I holding myself back from this part of the process? speaker-1: Well, yeah, I mean, even even as a you know programmer, web developer, you know, and a writer, you know, those things all have one thing in common, which is it's a lot of alone time. It's a lot of intr internal processing, a lot of internal work ⁓ that ⁓ you know, becomes you know, then you put out into the public, ⁓ or you you you you turn it over for someone else to judge and and and see. But it's not like an actor where you're constantly having to put yourself out for auditions, you're constantly up on stage, you're constantly you know, before the camera. ⁓ and you really have developed that muscle of being seen and kind of losing a bit I mean, I'm sure sta stage fright happens to everybody. speaker-0: know a lot of actors ⁓ very good actors that have stage right but yeah no you're absolutely right it's a case of when you're behind the screen by the computer all day doing what you do and doing it well nobody's there going good boy at a boy right speaker-1: Not even in my brain. speaker-0: Okay. So I have two really great techniques that we're gonna learn today. Like I told you, don't worry about writing all this down. I'm gonna send them to you afterwards. But my regular listeners are gonna recognize these techniques, but what they're gonna notice is I'm doing them something I'm doing something different with them on with you. ⁓ in a way I'm mashing up two of my own techniques. So the first one I call clear the cash, which As a computer programmer, you totally get this, right? ⁓ the goal with this for you is to help you get past the old criticism criticisms and get them out of your brain permanently, hopefully. I mean, they may sneak in every once in a while because we all have them, but I've done this work myself. I know it works, which is why I put it out there. And then the second one I'm gonna ⁓ mash up with this is something called change the angle. And This is where we're gonna rewrite some things. And as a writer, I think you're really gonna like these techniques. So ⁓ I have notes because I really delved into this last night and today. So let me talk to the audience so they understand what we're doing. And like I said, you'll get cliff notes with details. but what you're gonna do first and what I find with this kind of work, it it depends how fast you type. Like I can't type as fast as I can talk or think. So I usually recommend using some sort of voice memo on my app or notes or whatever. And what you want to do is, and this is going to be hard because you're forcing yourself to bring up negativity, right? But we got to clear the negativity in order to get the positive in there. So in voice memo over the course of however long, a week, I want you to start it. You know, I want you to take some time whenever it pops up and just do it. If it's a second, if it's a minute, it's 10 minutes of ranting. But I want you think about every negative or put down or, you know, why do you think you're not you're g you're that? Whatever whatever happened, you know, that formed for you this feeling of, you know, my work's not gonna be good enough or I'm ⁓ I I don't deserve this praise is really where I'm going more 'cause you know your work is good. But it's more about I don't deserve this. So that is coming from somewhere. Somewhere somebody's you like your like your mother's that may have been the only time she did that, but let me tell you from personal experience, one time an adult, when you are in formable years, says something to you, it sticks with you. I have some things that were said in front of me when I was a kid that I have gotten past, but haven't forgotten them. So so you use this as a way to just get all those sentences out, right? ⁓ and eventually you're gonna have Probably a pretty decent list of things that were said to you. All right. So that is the first step. Once you feel you've done it all, go back through, download it into something you can work in, and then figure out what is a true duplicate. Some of them are gonna seem similar, but they're not exactly similar, so don't get rid of them. But if there's something that it was said multiple times, it's a duplicate. Right. So just just take out the duplicates. And there's a reason for this. This is to make the second exercise easier for you. ⁓ but again, you're you're you're taking all this negativity, you're putting it on paper, you're putting it at a place you can look at it. Okay, so once you get it to where you have, let's say you had a hundred and now you got seventy two. I don't know. ⁓ I'm sure if I really tried hard I could find seventy two times in my life where my parents were other adults around me were not very full of praise. But ⁓ I want you to then number them. Okay. Each statement should be on its own line. And then after that, I want you to try and recall who said it. My mother, my father, my older brother, my cousin, my aunt who I couldn't stand anyway. You know, whoever, a teacher, my fifth grade English teacher, whoever it may have been. and then once you've got down who said it, the next step in that is to organize it by person. All right. So it's a lot, it's a lot of neck t negativity. It's a lot of doing some recall. It's gonna be painful at times. But I do know what these techniques is is sometimes you got to push through the pain to get to the other side of it. ⁓ but what you're doing is you're clearing your cash. You're getting out on paper ⁓ all this negative negative thoughts that you grew up with that were attached to your life at a certain point that are not serving you now. But more importantly, which will be our second part, you are attaching them to the person who said it. Okay? And it and you don't need to forgive or not forgive or think much about it. It's just they said it. It came out of their mouth. Whether it came out in anger or disbelief or they were having a bad day, whatever it is, it still sat with you. So that this many years later you actually remember not only what it was, but who said it. It's still in there. It's way back in that memory bank. Okay. So you'll have cleared your cash. And now we're gonna do the next part, which I absolutely think you're gonna love. and this is new. I haven't done it this way before, so I'm really excited about this. I want you to organize that master list of characters. They're no longer your relatives or friends or brothers or teachers. They're now characters. Okay? So you've got them in blocks. The father character, the mother character, the brother, whatever they are. And these are all the negative things that they told this main character. You are going to be your own main character in this little story. ⁓ but you're blocking it out. Okay. And here's where the fun comes in. You'd Take each character and look at them from a different perspective, a different angle. This is where we change the angle. You look at them at them from a different angle, and you ⁓ try to imagine what their backstory was when they were a child. Okay. You know, when you write a book, when you write a screenplay, there's all these onion layers of a person. We may see this guy on the screen, and he's the The biggest jerk in the world, but we don't know that he was beat by everybody he ever met up until he was 20. Whatever it is, that's I want you to pull away from it being your relatives specifically. Or use a little bit of their own backstory if you know it, but create story, backstories for the characters. Not anything too elaborate, but just enough to you where you start to realize, ⁓ this character of course would react this way to some. to my character's ⁓ talent or my character's ability to do certain things that they don't know or don't understand or whatever. ⁓ so now each of your characters has their own backstory. Okay? And so here's where it gets even better. You have a backstory for every character. You understand now where your main character, why all these characters cause your main character to feel the way they did, why they said the things they said to your main character. Now, take that same s you have one story, so one storyline here. It sucks. You know, in a way. You know, there's parts of it that suck. I mean, you know, as a kid, when we hear these things, it just it's not it's not what we want to hear when we're growing up. But it is it happened. But I want you to take that away from you and take it into this one story. And now I want you to change the story. I want you to take every one of your characters, whether it's five or seven, it's probably not gonna be more than that main characters, and imagine their backstory was different. Even if you and write it out if you have to. Whatever it is just for you to To get your juices flowing. I love putting stuff on paper, or I love speaking in my voice memo because I get so much out of my head when I do that. So by taking their original story and creating a new backstory for each of them, all right, you look at their lives, their new lives, the lives they could have had, or maybe should have had, or maybe they wish they had. And now imagine how they would have treated the main character. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Right. Yeah. It's a lot of work. speaker-1: Ha ha. speaker-0: But but it's not a lot a lot of work, right? It's a little bit here and a little bit there. And what happens is in our when we do this, when we get it all out and when we change the angle, we've got the clear the cache, we've gotten all that out. Now we're changing the angle of of the story, the people ⁓ who, you know, were the main characters and how they would have reacted differently had they had a different backstory. You know, we like to believe now that ⁓ a lot of people are especially nowadays, a lot of people are able to I find a lot of parent younger parents are able to say, doesn't matter what happened to me, I'm gonna be different. But there is a period of time, you and I grew up in that era where that's not the case. Nobody was that informed, nobody knew to do any better. So we have to do that for ourselves. So what I'm asking you is basically to do that for yourself as the first big step. in w you know what where we're gonna go next, which would be the next time I see you. But but this is a lot. ⁓ what I what but I what what I want you to be careful to do is whether it was your mother or your father or what somebody you love, it's okay. You can still love people that are flawed, right? We love we can love people that are flawed. But give them a different story and then figure out what story they would have told that your character, that main character, had they had a different story. And Here's ultimate where you're land. You're gonna land in a place, I believe, that once you get it out and once you look at it differently, you're gonna have a different baseline for yourself. And that baseline is somebody who can now take in positive praise. And I know it sounds crazy, this whole idea of changing the viewpoint, changing the angle, but I've done it myself. I've had clients do it over the years. I just had a guest recently do it ⁓ on a very major traumatic situation in our life. But but they were shocked at how much it rewired their thinking and how they were going to handle something going forward. ⁓ so that's what I want you to try. That's what I want you to try. Okay. And then and then next month we'll have you back and either you'll tell me I'm, you know, crazy or you're like, ⁓ this sort of worked a little bit, or But I think it with you, this is what I loved about it. You you're a writer. This is this way of doing this particular because for him I did it completely different. But for you, this is perfect. At least I think it's perfect. You know. speaker-1: It makes t it makes so so much sense to me. I mean anything that any any character that people respond to, it's because they're flawed. It's because they can ⁓ find some compassion about what's driving them to be flawed. And yeah, so this this ⁓ I'm I'm I'm excited about this. I think it makes a lot of sense. speaker-0: Great. 'Cause I I I love this particular technique. I love that this is a completely new way that I'm doing it or doing it with somebody else. I've actually done it with family members of my own over the years, or years ago I should say. I don't have to do anymore. Everybody's in a good place. But ⁓ you know, it's just it's a I think it's a really great technique, especially for a writer, 'cause it's all about characters. All about characters backstory. So you're gonna you're gonna write your own. You're gonna write your own. So great. So like I said, we will send you a quick ⁓ not you know send you an email remind you of the steps. But ⁓ I really enjoyed having you on today. I look forward to having you on next month and I look forward to seeing what you do with this and to hearing about how thing your other creative processes are progressing. I know you got a lot going on, but I appreciate you being here today. speaker-1: Thanks, Bill. I had a great time being here and I'm looking forward to seeing you again ⁓ with my rewrite. Yeah rewrites for producers, so this is alley. speaker-0: Terrific. There you go. That's great. I'm glad. All right. Well, thank you very much, and ⁓ we'll have you back soon. Before we end today's show, I want to leave you with one thought. Many of us are carrying beliefs about ourselves that were formed years ago, often by people who never intended those beliefs to become permanent. What struck me about Tim's story is that success didn't erase those old messages for him. They were still there, quietly influencing how he saw himself. And that's true for a lot of us. The challenge isn't always about building confidence. Sometimes it's questioning where the old story we've been carrying is even accurate anymore. If you've accomplished more than you give yourself credit for, maybe it's worth asking where your view of yourself is coming from, and whether it's time to update it. Thanks for joining us on Unsuck With Bill. I'm Bill Ferguson III, and I will see you next time. To learn more about my Unstuck techniques, or if you'd like to be a guest on the podcast, visit UnstuckWithBill.com. My latest book, Unstuck, How to Move Forward When You Don't Know What to Do, is available now on Amazon.com. And be sure to follow me on social media at Unstuck With Bill. Unstuck With Bill is produced by Unstuck Productions LLC.