Building Your Brand and Challenging Imposter Syndrome with Gia Goodrich

Imposter syndrome is something everyone experiences at some point in their lives. It refers to an internal feeling of doubting your abilities and believing that you are not as qualified as others perceive you to be. The Girls Building Empires Podcast hosted by Madison Reid invited content creator Gia Goodrich to share what she has learned about challenging this inner critic throughout her creative journey. Gia began her career practicing to be an actress before switching direction to study psychology, she later moved on to pursue photography and found her way into the world of content creation. Although content creation was not always Gia's goal, switching between these professions unintentionally equipped her with the skills she needed to excel in this field. Tieing her skills from acting lessons of being comfortable in front of the camera, understanding the psychology behind creating compelling stories, and practicing the mechanics of photography to create visually compelling content helped Gia get to where she is today.

Gia touches on where imposter syndrome comes from; she explains a reflex in the brain called "instinctive elaboration," meaning it is an instinct for us to grow from an idea, and when we ask a question, our brain automatically starts filling in answers. When we ask ourselves questions about our dreams or motivations, it's easiest for us to dismiss them with negative thoughts. We dive deeper into these negative feelings when we compare ourselves to others. "When you compare yourself to others, you are comparing your behind scenes to their on-stage moments," it is important to remind ourselves that what we see on social media is final, polished content and that their behind scenes are likely as unorganized and messy as yours. Sharing our content and opening ourselves up to the possibility of similar judgement can be intimidating, we often compensate for this by striving to be as neutral as possible. We aim to cast a wide net to please everyone, but trying to be everything to everyone dilutes what makes you unique. Gia gives us some tips on how to own what makes you different and challenge negative self-talk.

We begin building your personal brand by finding what feels authentic to you. Gia suggests starting this process by finding your ikigai, a sweet spot of what you bring to the table. It helps you determine what you can do well, what people need, what you can get paid for, and what lights you up. After laying all this out, you match it with your "cultural constellation," a combination of your values, experiences, and identity. Once you are clear about what you would like to do and what you bring to the table, ask yourself five why's. Look a little deeper and think, "why do I want to do this?", "what does this mean for me?" go five why's deep to isolate your vision. Gia went through the same process during her photography career, transforming her personal brand from "I'm a photographer that takes pictures of things" to "I'm a photographer that is deeply set on reframing the way we see the world and the representation we have access to. I make portraits of identity-rich humans to shift the landscape to a world I want to create." This created a clearer picture of her mission and changed her scope of work from businesses needing a photographer to businesses needing her photography. "A personal brand is about identifying and understanding what about you is unique and what value you can provide." We think refining our purpose makes our following smaller but everyone doesn't need to have the same experience to resonate with your work. Being authentic to yourself attracts people who resonate with your values and identity.

Creating a clear picture of your personal brand helps set the stage to be more confident in your work, but feelings of uncertainty and doubt can still arise. Gia gives us some further advice on ways to challenge your inner critic and remind yourself of the progress you have made. She came up with a concept called the Ribbon Drawer, "when we were kids, we had trophies or ribbons for whatever it was, and there was usually a place where they were collected, maybe in your room. As adults, we stop doing that at some point, we stop having this reflection of our awesome." Gia suggests creating a revived ribbon drawer to collect evidence of our awesome. You can start by creating an album on your phone and taking screenshots of moments where your work has felt recognized or positively impacted someone and adding it to your Ribbon Drawer. As you collect these wins, big or small, you create a place to refer back to when you doubt yourself as a reminder of the positive progress you have made. In addition to this, we can also deconstruct these negative narratives by asking ourselves questions. "Who does it serve for me to feel this way?" "Who is it not serving?" "Where does it come from?" By asking these kinds of questions, we can begin to disentangle it and get to the root of these feelings. Lastly, fake it 'til you make it. Act like you know what you're doing even though you feel nervous or unsure, your brain will begin to see you as this person and the affirmation will follow. 

Imposter syndrome is a universal experience. We question ourselves and worry about how we will be perceived by others when in reality, everyone is so consumed in their own world, that they aren't looking at or judging us the way we think they are. We have the power to continue our work despite internal or external opinions and trust that the confidence we need will come in time. Gia likes to ask herself in times of uncertainty, "what if everything I'm experiencing is going to give me the tools I need to take me exactly where I am destined to go?" what if this adversity is what you need to build momentum. "If we are just planting seeds, with the best of intentions and released to the outcome, things will grow from that." Trying to micromanage or oversteer can ruin the journey, the best growth can come from things we weren't expecting. 

Written by Shayla Young