We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Shana Yao. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Shana below.
Shana, 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.
Before I started working for myself, I spent 25 years in the corporate world. I never doubted my capabilities and was the best at what I did (I was a shopping center marketing director for 15 years and won awards).
When life and the world changed – I lost my corporate job in the economic crash and the internet was just starting to be “a thing” – I had to recreate myself and could no longer rely on my past accomplishments.
I think it’s really hard to overcome imposter syndrome in today’s world, where you’re forced to talk about how great you are on social media.
For me, if I kept my head down and focused on my clients, my work, and speaking my voice, everything was great. The minute I started looking at social media (consuming instead of producing), I would instantly start to doubt myself.
My advice to anyone who is dealing with imposter syndrome is to stop consuming on social media. Literally. You can’t “kind of look”. You just need to NOTT look. It’s not helpful to see what competitors are doing. Study other people who are in different industries to get ideas for social media. You don’t need to know what your direct competitors are doing. They are doing what they are good at. Do what you are good at and passionate about.
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 Business Strategist/Copywriter and work with several recurring clients to help them with their marketing strategy, copywriting, and email marketing.
Before that I was a Business Coach. I helped people find their purpose, hone in on their business voice/personality and devise a business strategy around it.
Personally, I loved doing it. But I hated promoting myself. Since I spent 25 years in the corporate world working behind the scenes, working with small businesses and international retailers, talking about myself, promoting myself as a part of business was very uncomfortable for me.
I love helping people speak their mission – and eventually found my way back to working with small businesses behind the scenes. I love what I do now. I wish I could do both but I have no interest in promoting myself on social media.
For anyone who is struggling to find your purpose – to fit your talent into a way to make money – it’s a combination of what you’re good at (what you’ve probably done for work before, what you went to school for), what you love doing – I love writing, creating stories, helping people speak their voice – and how you like doing it.
You have a choice in how you conduct your business/work. Everyone says you have to be on social media. You don’t. It’s great if you want to, but if you don’t, there are other ways to make money doing what you love and still working as an independent contractor.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Copywriting – you need to learn how to write in a way that people can relate to. Whether you do it for yourself or for others, learning how to write in the way people speak, is important.
In today’s world with AI – you can use it if you want to sound like a computer. But AI has no personality. Use it but then hone in on your own voice to make it have a personality to communicate your message.
Discernment – This is wisdom that you learn by making a lot of mistakes. Thank your past mistakes and be sure to pull the lesson out of them. I optimize for no regrets. Take risks – know what the downsides are as well as the upsides and try to optimize for no regrets.
Learning how and what to learn – There is so much noise in today’s world. Try to eliminate as much of the noise as possible and focus on what will make YOU better – not just in what you do but who you are. Your health (mental and physical), your financial knowledge, and whatever you do for work.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
My mom always told me the work will always be there in the morning.
When I feel overwhelmed – whether it’s workload or just a lot of problems occurring at the same time – I try to take a step back and remind myself I can’t fix it all right now. I can only do my best in every moment and let God do the rest.
The thing that overwhelms me the most is when there is something wrong with my dog. My obsessive brain focuses in on that and it’s hard to focus.
But it’s the same thinking. I can only do the best for her today and in every moment. And time and God will have to do the rest.
Having some sort of spiritual/higher belief is very helpful here.
Joel Olsteen says “Take your seat”. When you work, God rests. When you rest, God goes to work.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://holisticgenius.co
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/total_genius
- Facebook: https://linkedin.com/shanayao
- Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/shanalynnyao
