We were lucky to catch up with Linda Helisto recently and have shared our conversation below.
Linda, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
It was February 2020, and my husband and I had just sold our belongings in our home country, Finland followed our dreams and moved into a tiny RV on a small island just outside Vancouver. Little did we know that two weeks into settling into Canada and starting over our lives would, a global pandemic change the world as we knew it. When the Finnish foreign ministry emailed asking if we would be on the last plane out of the country, we told them we would stay. We didn’t have a life to return to. And we really wanted to build a new life in Canada – even amid a global pandemic.
Job hunting at this time was interesting, to say the least. As a Sales Executive with a background in IT startups, I am confident entering the job market. But then it hit: the imposter syndrome. Who was I to get all these jobs I was dreaming about? Did I really have what it takes to succeed in a new country? I was a foreigner, and people around me told me how hard it is to find a job as a newcomer. And as my anxiety about the situation rose, I noticed my old friend, the imposter syndrome, raising its head.
Imposter syndrome slowly yet surely kills the spark inside you, tapping directly into the deep-rooted fear of not being worthy of getting the things you desire. The fear of others figuring out that you don’t have what it takes to succeed prevents us from thoroughly enjoying the ride. We try to control the situation, ensuring that we fulfil the expectations at each step and perform flawlessly. But the truth is, we can’t. It is impossible to always be to others what they expect from us. Yet we strive for a perfect performance, deep down believing that we don’t deserve the good things in our lives unless we give a perfect performance, meet other people’s expectations – and overcompensate.
It was Shangri-La that saved my new start in Canada. Shangri-La is a marketing and sales framework I used as a sales executive to crystallise and streamline sales communications. And now, I was using it to clarify my own story.
In the past, with the help of this framework, my team and I increased company revenue by over 4000% during our second year in business, so I knew that this tool works! When you know what you are selling and the picture is clear in your head, sales can feel as easy as taking a deep breath. It’s the ease factor that fuels your growth.
This clarity slowly but surely ate away the imposter syndrome. It was because I repeated my new story time after time as I wrote my resumes for different jobs. It was as if the imposter syndrome was repeating an old story of who I was—and here I was, day after day, teaching myself new ways to talk about myself, my experience, and my dreams for the future.
My routine was sending 2-5 customised Resumes per day. Each time I wrote my bio describing who I am and what I am truly about, I looked at my story through the Shangri-La. What have I already done? What examples would showcase my experiences? Where do I want to go? And what types of jobs would take me towards a work-life I want to build?
This daily practice of reminding myself of what I have actually done was crucial in not selling myself short. Each time the anxiety of imposter syndrome crept in, I returned to the stories of what I had already done and my experience. It was as if I was answering back to myself about how my beliefs about myself were actually not true.
Finding a new way of telling my story was not enough, though. I needed to learn how to work with my difficult emotions as they rose. Previously, I would have tried to talk myself out of feeling things and do my best to analyze my way out of them without making any real progress in the situation. The fact is, my feelings of guilt, anxiety and a fear of making mistakes were still running over me like enormous waves. Yes, I had a new story, and learning how to tell it (and believe it) was helping me step into this exciting new phase in my life. Yet, in the wee hours of the morning, the residues of my old programming were still stemming from my spine. It is not enough to have a new story – you must teach your body how to feel safe in this new version of who you are. Otherwise, we often self-sabotage ourselves – just because, deep down, our bodies do not feel safe in this new, expansive version of who we are becoming.
Difficult emotions, such as shame and guilt, can prevent us from making the changes we want. We live small, flying under the radar so we don’t cause any stir. “Who do you think you are?” was my imposter syndrome, asking me over and over again—and time after time, I came back to my mind with an answer that wasn’t based on past pain but my future vision of myself.
Emotions are energy in motion. They are inner information; sensations meant to be felt. As I learned ways to work with my intense emotions somatically and change my state of mind with movement, I gradually started teaching my body and mind new ways to look at my life. Instead of believing the imposter syndrome, I could look at it as information about my nervous system state – and to help myself get grounded back to safety and connection with movement and breathwork.
Recreating my own story and learning how to work with intense emotions somatically has been critical in taking leaps in my career and personal life. They are not called edge emotions for no reason: imposter syndrome and its intense emotions can be signs that we are at the edge of our current thinking – and that the spiral leading to our growth is right in front of us!
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am a Holistic Business Coach and Sales Advisor for holistic healthcare professionals and clinicians. I also work with creatives ready to take the leap and expand to their full potential in business (and life!).
What excites me the most about what I do is seeing my clients grow their businesses and expand their brands from a sense of alignment, exhilaration, and enthusiasm for the future. They are no longer afraid to be seen, and they are excited to sell their services and help people. They know what to do when an intense emotion takes over and how to help work with it, and teach their bodies to feel safe in their new story.
My clients have described me as their doula in their transformation journey, and I love this description! I find it extremely meaningful that I have the opportunity to bring all my expertise from leading sales and launching new services in the startup world, social media and building authentic professional brands, and body-mind science as a tool for personal transformation so they can tap into their full potential in both business and life.
Now, it is time for me to take my coaching to the next level and return to my home turf—the corporate world by offering workshops on how to work with intense emotions and challenging behaviours in change. There is news of layoffs coming from the left and right. There is a lot of fear and anxiety – some people are crippled with worry, some people collapse, some people go to “push” mode and do even more than before, and some people become cynical. People need support in organizational change: they need tools to understand their own intense emotions and how to support their mental wellbeing even in challenging situations.
As an executive, I wanted to achieve my personal best and perform at a high level. However, I wasn’t prepared to go work in the ambiguity that can be a reality in a startup company. After an extremely straining period, my positive can-do-attitude turned into despair. First it was feeling more and more frustrated at work. Slowly my positive drive and enthusiasm turned to bitterness. I found myself crying in the parking lot before coming to the office. During weekends I felt numb and just laid on the couch watching Love It or List It Vancouver and eating chips. I was perplexed: what was going on with me? This person was not me.
I had read all the self-help books on optimizing one’s performance and reaching one’s full potential at work – yet, I didn’t know what to do with my emotions and these seemingly irrational behaviours. It was only after I learned about the neurobiology behind intense emotions that I had the ability to look at myself with compassion and find ways to get back to balance. As I moved forward with this new-found knowledge on I could truly tap into my full business potential and bring ease into my performance – without continuously working on the verge of a burnout.
Now, it is my time to bring this knowledge to growth-seeking teams who are ready to look at human flourishing and business performance from a new perspective. Setting a new direction for an organization and planting hope is impossible if people are mentally strained and when there are a lot of fear, ambiguity and worry in the air. After we learn what is going on with us and what we can do already at that moment of intense anxiety, worry or fear to work with the emotion, stress can decrease already with that increase of knowledge. Plus, the more successful we become with dealing with intense emotions, the more we are actively supporting our own resilience and ability to bounce back from stressful situations. The key is – however – you need to know how. And these are the tools I want to bring to organizations and professionals: so that people have the tools to support their mental and physical wellbeing, as well as personal and professional growth.
This new step in my own expansion as a professional ties together all the topics I feel passionate about. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Sciences and a Master’s Degree in Economics, where I majored in Leadership and Organizations. I have studied chronic stress and its somatic effects under former NASA Stress Consultant, Medical Biophysicist and Psychotherapist Peter Levine, Ph.D.. Currently, I’m studying the neurobiology of challenging behaviours and intense emotions at NICABM in the US.
Emotions guide our every behaviour. If we don’t have the tools to work with intense emotions, we can’t access our full potential and brain power in business.
When we learn the neurobiology behind intense emotions and challenging behaviour at work, we can get tools to regulate our own emotions, reduce stress at work and increase compassion towards ourselves – and others.
If you are curious or would like to see if I’m the right person to support your team or organization in using intense emotions as guides to more joy and better business performance, I’d love to talk! I’m active on different social media platforms. You can also contact me through my website, www.lindahelisto.com. I’m always excited to talk with people who want to take their business and performance to the next level!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The number one important quality that has fueled each and every step of my journey has been the desire to understand myself – and look at my fears directly into the eyes, even if it feels scary.
The second would be the courage to dream big. Too often, we are the ones tuning down our dreams. As a result, we find ourselves living a life that doesn’t truly satisfy our souls. We settle when what would free us is to listen to ourselves and have the courage to take the steps towards our dreams.
Third, I am incredibly lucky to have the right people around me to support me on my journey. We are guides to each other, helping the people around us find their own path. When you have the right people on your journey, they often help you to grow and empower you to expand into who you truly are.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
Overwhelm is an emotion that indicates that we perceive that there is nothing we can do about a situation—or that we believe that the things we do will not impact our situation. We feel helpless and trapped.
To get out of this nervous system state, I often use movement to bring my body back to a sense of safety. I also ask other people to give me emotional support so that I can gather the courage to take action on something that feels overwhelming.
For example, for the longest time, I was so afraid of making money mistakes that I procrastinated and avoided taking steps on the topic. It was knowing how to help bring my body back to a sense of safety and to have my husband by my side as I clicked through the tasks that I not only did what had previously felt too overwhelming for me to do. I also did some EFT tapping to help me clear old limiting beliefs on money. Yep… I am an Economist who was afraid of money. They sure didn’t teach me how to deal with the intense emotions that money can bring up in us!
I’ve also found great benefits from having a ‘Worry Box’. I have a gorgeous blue and white tin box in my office dedicated to my worry thoughts. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by a situation, I write down in a post-it note (as detailed as possible) why I feel overwhelmed or worried – and what I’m really afraid of happening.
When we write down and deconstruct our worries and anxieties into the fears that hide underneath these thoughts, we bring clarity to the situation – and free up space in our conscious mind. You can imagine offering these worries to someone: it can be God, the Universe or your subconscious mind. Either way, you are creating space for new solutions to emerge. When returning to my post-it notes after some time, I’ve witnessed an interesting phenomenon: like magic, I’ve seen seemingly impossible situations resolve themselves. By releasing my grip, I allow new perspectives to emerge and bring new solutions, leading to new outcomes.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lindahelisto.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindahelisto/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindahelisto/
- Other: Spotify – Life Reimagined Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/7LWDfppdxjLKFIno2F21K7?si=93e55e68a72a44a9
Image Credits
Cristina Gareau, Linda Helisto
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