Meet Lauren Dreher

We were lucky to catch up with Lauren Dreher recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lauren, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.
I decided I wanted to achieve my goals more than I was willing to let imposter syndrome stop me. That being said, imposter syndrome has come at me in a lot of ways. People pleasing, self-diminishing talk, trying to be the overachieving superhuman. Ultimatley, something important to know about me is i’m still a work in progress and will always be with all of these things. What has saved me is having a shift in perspective.

I’ve always been a people pleaser. I want people to like me, like what i’m doing, like who I am, etc. Because of this, I always tried to fit in all over the place and be like everyone else. Not that fitting in is bad, but I wasn’t being myself for sure. I like to call myself a recovering people pleaser because that will never go away. I got to a point where I got frustrated because I was always dropping what I wanted to do or what i was doing to take care of someone else. I didn’t want them to be mad at me. Realizing I could either say “no”, “not yet”, or “not right now” and people would be find with that was wonderful. Getting used to that took a while, mostly because I needed to get out of my head that I was making someone mad. Then it came to creating and enforcing boundaries. Boundaries with time, routines, turning down opportunities. I was hard, really hard. Then I started to accomplish things and make progress, and I saw a positive side of that.

I’ve always been bad at diminshing self talk. I had no idea I was until I started paying close attention to my thoughts, how I talked about what I was doing to myself, and to others. I would use verbiage that made it sound like what I was talking about or what I was asking wasn’t important. That was not true. Again, I catch myself doing this still. And in fact, I talked about this on an imposter syndrome panel I did for a conference. It takes being conscious about how you talk to yourself and probably a lot of deleting words when you catch yourself typing emails and asking someone for something.

Then there’s the overachieving. I always used to think I just couldn’t do some things. I would get overly frustrated when it didn’t work and give up. It wasn’t until I wanted something bad enough that I refused to give up that I learned to work through the frustration and figure it out. Thats when I stepped into a creative zone i’d never been in before and started figuring out all the things I could do. Write, build a website, create a podcast, create logos and graphics. I’m not bragging, more of pointing out the differences in these things. I don’t have a technical mind, but I was determined to figure things out. I’ve also become really interested in psychology and a little neuroscience because its very interesting to know. I want to do all the things for my family and get them in all the activities. I’m in a large learning curve with this and there have been multiple times where i’ve had to take a step back, and reprioritize. I’ve had to take things off my plate depending on the season i’ve been in. Some of which were really hard, because it felt like I was letting go of a piece of myself. Ultimatley, I found myself doing too many things that I didn’t do any of them well. I have to take it down to setting an example for my boys. I want them to learn to work hard, but if you go for too many things, you won’t get any of them.

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?
Originally I wanted to be a speaker on self image. I grew up with facial scars and I wanted to help girls and women develop confidence from the inside out. Learn to love who you are inside, it will naturally show on the outside. When I started to do that I developed a passion for mindset and how much it can change and affect your life, for better or worse. As I took my own personal development dive, I ended up developing a network, tools, tips and tricks. I saw how effective they were for me, so I wanted to share them with the world. As I kept moving forward, I found myself wanting to share my trials and tribulations as well as my wins and celebrations.

When I wrote Go With Your Gut: Then Keep Going, it was originally going to be named Road Less Traveled because thats what I was doing. One day, I was writing and realized everything I had done was because I had listened to by gut intuition and decided to go with it and figure things out. I kept on going. Thats exactly what I wanted readers to get from the book. Listen to that gut, even when it scares the crap out of you, and then keep on taking steps forward. I started to speak to groups about that. I also wanted to talk about using your gut in everyday life, because thats really what its all about. At that time, I didn’t want to just post video’s everywhere, i wanted to give listeners a choice. I started the Go With Your Gut Podcast to talk about the things I was experiencing on a weekly basis, how I was working through that and the results. If i was going through it, someone else probably was too.

I’ve also been on a Tedx journey. After a lot of work, I got to give my Tedx talk in October! Now, i’m on a mission to give more- i’ve got some idea’s worth spreading.

I’ve found that I can relate the content in Go With Your Gut to most any stage an circumstance in life. I speak and coach using 3 pillars that have naturally come out in with the things I talk about.

1. Growing through fear
2. Finding the opportunity in difficulty
3. Shifting perspective

I enjoy doing panels, keynotes, breakout sessions, conferences, etc.

Products:

Keynotes/Speaking Engagements: I’m a mindset and leadership speaker.

Coaching/Consulting: I come observe and provide insight for team communication and processes- work on a game plan for forward momentum.

My Planner: I’ve always been a planner and I’ve always needed to write things down and have reminders. I’ve tried a lot of planners in my day but somehow they haven’t fit the mold for what I need. So, I developed my own. My goal is to have a platform that will allow you to custom create your own planner and create the spread you want. You’ll be able to save your layouts and designs or come back and adjust because the things you need change with the seasons of life. I can’t handle too much chaos on my planners, I need simple. Everyone is different. I also want it to be economical, i don’t like spending $60 on a planner that will only last a few months. The standard one is available.

Go With Your Gut book: I’ve been told this is a book you refer back to, not one that will sit on a shelf. What a great compliment to get.

Go With Your Gut Podcast: free- I talk about lots of different things. take a listen

Misfits Managed Podcast- I cohost this with a friend of mine Gary Newsome. This is a podcast all about being different and embracing your quirks. We are on a mission to make being different a good thing.

my App: this is a future goal- I want to have a lifestyle app that goes with the principles in the book. You can set up reminders, set up affirmations, set a schedule to keep you on track, manage lists etc.

Book on FEAR: i’m working on this. My goal is to make fear a good thing. It means you are pushing your boundaries and comfort zone and doing things that scare you. That’s the only way you will grow. I’m going to break it down so that its not such a big scary word and you can learn how it applies and affects you- and how to grow through it.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Quality or Skill: Be solid in your vision. You can tell as many people as you want, but you are the only one that has the tenacity to make it happen. There will be more people than not that won’t understand your vision and won’t believe in it. Let that go, and keep going. Its your vision, not theirs.

Quality or Skill: Be willing to be bad. I used to be one to want to be good at something before I started. Doesn’t usually work like that. Whatever you do, be ready and willing to start and learn new things, and be bad at it. You have to start somewhere to get good.

Skill: Get used to saying “no.” When you want so badly to make something happen, you want to say yes to everyone. Set boundaries and stick to them. Be willing to tell people you don’t want their services, you aren’t ready for their services, the opportunity isn’t right for you. Make sure things align with what your doing and make sense. there is freedom in “no”

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I love collaborating. It helps to expand each person’s reach and get the word out about what they are doing.

I want to collaborate with those who want to help each other expand and grow. They need to be open minded to ideas but willing to put in the work.

Contact Info:

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Leadership Development
Where does your self-discipline come from?

One of the most essential skills for unlocking our potential is self-discipline. We asked some

Productivity
Tactics & Strategies for Keeping Your Creativity Strong

With the rapid improvements in AI, it’s more important than ever to keep your creativity

Productivity
Working hard in 2025: Keeping Work Ethic Alive

While the media might often make it seem like hard work is dead and that