Second Cup: Transform your negative self-talk

into your leadership Superpower. Many people suffer from some form of anxiety, and some of those folks are going to wind up in leadership roles. Mora asserts that it is possible to manage anxiety and leadership and turn the care and concern that are sometimes at the root of anxiety into good things for your team while climbing through the ranks of anything. Feedback is inevitable, Indeed, it's critical. None of us is born perfect and we all need to improve. Nonetheless,

negative feedback can be hard to hear. As Mara puts it, we make mistakes, don't hit sales goals, fall short of targets, misread and mismanaged situations. That's just life. It happens when anxiety is in the picture. Feedback can trigger such intense imposter feelings that, as Mora says, we just want to go hide. People start making sweeping self talk statements like I'm incompetent, or I'm a terrible leader, or no one

wants to work for me, and so forth. But it is possible to diffuse these negative feelings and get some distance from them. Negative self talk relies on powerful words that are designed to make you feel terrible. But words

are just words. Mora quotes doctor Russ Harris, one of the world's foremost experts on acceptance and commitment therapy, as saying that earlier in his life, his own impostor syndrome would show up any time he made a trivial mistake, and he would berate himself with the words I'm incompetent. As a doctor, this was problematic to think, as it interfered with helping solve people's health problems. Nothing worked, Moris

says until Harris learned to detach from his thoughts. He realized that the I'm incompetent story was a mental reaction that showed up automatically, and it was no different from the thousands of other thoughts passing through his mind every day. So he came up with this idea. He would identify the negative thought that hooked him repeatedly. You can do this too. Whatever your equivalent of I'm incompetent happens to be, then substitute the word banana. So I'm a failure becomes

I'm a banana, I'm incompetent becomes I'm a banana. You get the picture. Does this make you feel silly? Well? Absolutely, But as Mara notes, I'm a banana is about as truthful as I'm incompetent. You have, no doubt demonstrated your competence on all sorts of things through life, and as your mind immediately springs to note that no, you are not a banana, perhaps that thought process can help surface

evidence that you aren't incompetent either. Does imposter syndromes start to lose its sting after the hundredth time you've replaced I'm incompetent with I'm a banana? Perhaps I'll note here that none of this means that people can't genuinely seek to improve on various dimensions. Critical feedback serves a purpose, but there is a huge difference between noting that my team members largely express that they want me to run tighter meetings, and here are some strategies I can try

with thinking I'm incompetent. So if you find yourself repeatedly berating yourself with broad negative statements, try the banana trick and see what happens. You might just be able to end a negative spiral and find practical ways to move forward. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of our time. Hey everybody, I'd love to hear from you. You can send me

your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod. That's b E the number four then Breakfast pod. You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast Podcasts at iHeartMedia dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much, should I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production

of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,